Gundam SeeD Redemption
by reinloch
Summary: At the end of the 2nd Bloody Valentine War, the CE world receives an unexpected visitor.
1. Phase 0

**Prologue: Hope**

**CE 74 January**

**Washington DC, Atlantic Federation**

Snow blanketed the historical buildings of the Capitol, as if providing respite to its occupants who have been enduring a siege for the past three days. Ever since the existence of LOGOS, a conglomerate that was allegedly responsible for starting the ongoing war, was exposed, public reaction has been nothing but hysterical. It began with mass rallies and demonstrations, which were initially kept under control by the authorities, but as their ranks were gradually bolstered by disgruntled members of armed institutions, their resolve grew and their means evolved beyond shoving placards and chanting slogans to armed insurgency. Now, anarchy reigned in the capital of the mightiest nation on the planet.

Senator John Harold Murray leaned back into his leather lounge chair and closed his eyes. He was a man in his fifties, with puffy eye bags and a large nose adorning his face, combed graying hair parted down the left crowning his head, and a wrinkled suit dressing his lean body. He took off his thick horn-rimmed glasses and began to massage the bridge of his nose.

Major General Basil 'Grizzly' Hart, who was seated in front of Murray, was giving the latter another hourly report on the defense of the Capitol. They were both in Murray's suite in the center wing of the Hart Building. The suite was a shadow of its former self, which had luxurious furniture and lavish ornaments, for it was now stripped of all but a few chairs and a table, and its windows were barricaded with sandbags and planks.

"How goes our situation?" Murray asked, fixing his weary eyes on Hart.

"Could've been better. We're down to about a thousand men defending the perimeter of the entire complex. We'll last for a while as long as they don't get too bright," Hart stated succinctly.

"How many of them are there?" Murray questioned, trying to make light of their situation.

"Who knows? Tens of thousands, perhaps more," Hart estimated.

"Have these people no sense of their well-being?," a frustrated Murray asked.

"Can't really judge them. These are dark times, people get crazy when things get tough," a calm Hart replied.

"So aren't we spreading ourselves thin?" Murray asked, doubting Hart's arrangement of their defensive strategy.

"Not at all," Hart replied confidently. "Defense in depth."

Murray stared at the man marshalling the defense of what could probably be the last bastion of the remnants of the Atlantic Federation Government. Hart was a large man, about six-feet-five when erect, with short blond hair that traced the contours of his scalp, a thin moustache and beard, and pale grey eyes. He was dressed for the frontline; a flak vest on top of his multicam infantry uniform, a webbing that carried ammunition clips and grenades on his chest, an assault rifle slung behind him, and a handgun holstered on his hip.

"Do you know...," Murray began sadly. "...that we're killing the very people we swore to protect? The blood on our hands is unwashable," he finished grimly.

"Then Abraham Lincoln must've taken his sullied hands to his grave," Hart countered. "The nation comes first. Lives must be lost, if needed, but the nation must stand. I pay no heed to the blood on my hands," the patriot declared his stand.

"We're killing the citizens of this nation. We're killing this nation," Murray remained unconvinced.

"It's already dead," Hart replied matter-of-factly. "It died an hour ago on Arzachel with the President, his Cabinet and his Joint Chiefs. The maniacs out there are fighting against a government that no longer exists. Right now, I'm fighting for the survival of the next government of the Federation, Mr. President."

"Don't call me that," Murray said with a tinge of hardness in his voice.

"If not you, sir, then who?" Hart pressed. "You're the most senior politician in the Senate and you're granted this right by the Constitution. And I'll be damned if I let another Blue Cosmos freak take the helm of this country," he finished with his fist clenched.

"I will not become the first non-elected President of this country. I'm not replacing one dictatorship with another," Murray protested.

"It's dictatorship or anarchy, sir," Hart countered. "God has forsaken us, but you must not," he demanded.

Murray had coveted the presidency. Which politician didn't, he reasoned when his wife took his ambition to task. But circumstances then and now were like heaven and earth. On the brink of a disaster of epic proportions, the Atlantic Federation today demanded a man of tremendous caliber to rise to the occasion, to rest the fate of millions on his tiny shoulders, and to secure the sight of tomorrow's sunrise for the nation. Nevertheless, it was not that Murray's courage was shaken by this daunting prospect, but his concern was that there could be someone else more suited to the task.

"Very well," Murray finally yielded. "I will take the helm if there's one left to take."

Hart raised an eyebrow. "The situation here is under control. If things get out of hand, I have several evac plans on the table," he assured his superior.

"I meant the Requiem," Murray explained. "If ZAFT fires it at us, we're finished."

"Intelligence reports that Orb and its allies are fighting to neutralize that weapon right now," Hart said. "They will win," he added.

At times, Murray felt that his subordinate's exalted confidence was intriguing, but right now, it was bordering on ridiculousness. "Orb? It doesn't matter whether they win or not. They or ZAFT, they both hate us. Right now, our fleet is scattered. Our people have turned against us. And weapons of mass destruction are aimed at us in such a way that we're powerless to resist. We are on the brink of extinction," Murray bared his fears.

"Sir, I'm a soldier. I'm trained to fight to the bitter end. As long as I still live, I refuse to believe that we are defeated," Hart said firmly. "If you, sir, are willing to stand at the front and lead the struggle, then I will stand behind you as your pillar of strength. I'll put every resource we have at your disposal. I'll make available to you every resource we need but do not have. I'll smash every obstacle, dead or living, that stands in our way. But only if you lead the way, Mr. President," he promised.

Hearing the speech of the veteran soldier, Murray felt invigorated. He wished that he could inspire his people like that. The hands of the clock of fate has struck the bleakest hour of the Atlantic Federation, and it seemed that he has to take up the job of the savior that was desperately needed.

"Very well," Murray finally said, his composure somewhat restored. "Give me options."

"Yes sir."


	2. Phase 1

**Phase 1: Fallen Angel**

**CE 74 January**

**Severodvinsk, Russia**

The bitter cold hurt every cell in her body. That was all she could feel as she marched across the frozen landscape that had once housed the largest atomic submarine facility in 20th century Russia.

A beep from the PDA she was carrying in her hand halted her march. She brought the screen of the device to her face and studied the colorful graphics it displayed. She needed to ascertain whether she was on the right track or not, but with the Neutron Jamming phenomena still plaguing the world and much of the Alliance's satellites destroyed, GPS was totally unreliable. Hence, she trekked all the way inland from the coast of the White Sea after being deposited by the AFS Ulysses, relying only on inertial guidance and the accuracy of an old fashioned map.

She recalled her mission briefing 12 hours ago. Major General Hart of the AFA had personally briefed her. The mission was peculiar, not because of the nature of it, but due to the nature of its patron – the AFA or Atlantic Federation Army, the national military institution that was relegated to menial interior security duties in the wake of ONMI coming online. The AFA, now internationally defunct, has just deployed her on a mission deep into foreign territory.

"Three months ago, a remote observatory deep within Siberia registered an unidentified object flying overhead on the IR spectrum. A study of its trajectory traced its origin to somewhere within the Debris Belt. When it exited sensor radius, its altitude was low enough to assume that it landed or crashed," Hart had said.

"The Eurasian taskforce that was scrambled to intercept the object did indeed find a crash site. We do not know exactly what was recovered from the site, but it was apparently enough to warrant a large scale research project."

She has arrived. Correlation between her bearing and the distance she had traveled with the coordinates given to her was within acceptable error margins to tell her that.

"The underground facilities of an abandoned Soviet submarine base in Severodvinsk were utilized to house the UFO's research center. The nature of the research conducted down there was revealed to us by a very reliable source in the Kremlin."

Her destination should be somewhere beneath her, concluded to be accessible via an elevator shaft by Intelligence. If her map was telling the truth, then there should be an entrance to that elevator shaft somewhere in the vicinity. She looked around her, seeking a particular structure from a jumble of snow-covered dilapidated buildings that once housed the specters of war of a distant era.

"A mobile suit had crashed in the wilderness of Siberia. The taskforce was scrambled because there was concern that it was a ZAFT unit. Valuable data could be retrieved from it. However, they soon found out that reality was far more spectacular that what was perceived."

She rappelled down the cables dangling inside an abandoned elevator shaft. She had tested their strength and was satisfied that they would hold her weight, but that was no guarantee that those hundred year old cables would not snap when she was halfway down. She was practically toying with her life when she entrusted it to the whims of cables that could be considered as historical relics today. But then, this mission itself was a suicidal undertaking. She was in the middle of nowhere, hundreds of miles away from proper civilization, and was surrounded by the some of the harshest environment on the planet.

"It was not of this world. The technology of the recovered mobile suit was not analogous to anything in this world. However, it was definitely human technology. From the Roman alphabets and Arabic numerals that decorated its exterior to the control sticks and consoles found in the cockpit, it has a distinctive human touch to it. The research team refused to even speculate its origin, preferring only to reverse engineer the technology to aid the war effort."

After what seemed like an eternity, she had reached the bottom of the shaft, 200 meters beneath sea level. She carefully pried open the sliding doors in front of her, making as little noise as possible, until a gap just wide enough for her so slip through was exposed.

"Your mission is to infiltrate the research center, investigate the research activities being conducted there, and pave the way for a direct assault on the facility by heavy forces that will be deployed by the Ulysses. Good luck."

The mission was next to impossible because she was conducting it alone, she thought. But there was no place for doubt or hesitation, she chastised herself. With her country's fate hanging on the edge, any mission that could provide some sort of leverage must be undertaken resolutely and must be ultimately successful.

She greeted her new surroundings with bewilderment. The subterranean research center that she was tasked with infiltrating was supposedly a lavishly equipped facility that hosted an extensive operation; that is if Intelligence got their facts straight, but the place that she was standing in right now was no different from the ones up above. It was dark and seemingly desolate.

Albeit unlit, she could see through her NVG that she was in a cavernous chamber that housed stacks of crates. She approached one of the stacks and began examining the lowest crate. It was about one meter by two meter in dimension, and by shining her IR torch at it, she could discern the old but unmistakable Soviet Red Star.

"I have discovered what seems like Soviet supply crates, probably containing ammunition, stored in a large room that is right outside the elevator shaft I used for my descent," she spoke into the microphone inside the visor that covered her face. It was SOP to record the proceedings of the mission verbally. "I will now exit this room to continuing exploring this facility," she added.

The only door that led out of the chamber, whose obstinate rusting mechanism finally gave way after being coaxed by plastic explosives, put her in a long corridor which was unlit as well. However, her NVG has no trouble displaying to her the modern features in the corridor which for the first time affirmed her that her agonizing trip here was worthwhile.

There were slot readers next to the sliding doors that dotted the walls on both sides of the corridor, which upon closer inspection, were found to have LCD panels and Roman labels instead of Cyrillic. Even the sliding doors were made out of composite materials, which she found out by simply knocking on them lightly.

She went to work almost immediately. She slipped a card-like device into the slot of a slot reader next to the nearest door which was marked with the word 'Database', then attached it to her PDA via a thin and transparent cable, and then began hacking the door's lock. But her effort was in vain. It seemed that power supply to the door systems in the facility was cut and thus the latter could not respond to any electronic manipulation.

"The situation in this facility is abnormal. It seems that power to the door systems had been cut. If we assume that power to all systems had been cut as well, which is a valid assumption as there are no lights working...," she reported to herself. "...then there is no life support working as well which means this facility must have been abandoned," she concluded.

"Strange," she remarked. Her mind began exploring various scenarios that could explain the bizarre state of the facility. Was Intelligence fed with disinformation? Were the occupants aware of her visit and had prepared a trap? Or did they simply relocate to avoid the tactical assault that would come after her? Or was it the work of another party that had planned to storm the facility?

If the occupants kept records, then they should shed some light into what had transpired here that had led to the whole place being abandoned, that is if that conclusion was accurate. With this in mind, she decided that her best option was to access the facility's records.

Setting off another package of plastic explosives, she blew open the doors to the Database room. The room has meters-high servers lined up against the walls with two terminals at a corner. Just as she expected, the servers were still running on backup power, a safety feature that was now the bane of its careless owners. She quickly sat in front of one of the terminals and began hacking again.

Please enter username and password:

Execute Hacking Routine 12647...

Login accepted.

She almost laughed aloud. These people were amateurs.

Request access to Command Mainframe

Access denied.

Execute Hacking Routine 666...

Access granted.

"Like taking candies from a baby," she could not help exclaiming. Having accessed the Command Mainframe, she now has control over most of the systems in the facility under her fingertips. She checked the facility's announcement log which finally confirmed her earlier suspicion.

'Attention all personal. Please begin evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill. I repeat, this is not a drill.'

She slid a data disc into a reader and began downloading all the files under the Research Data directory into the disc. Due to the various security implements embedded into the operating system requiring some hacking to overcome, the download was slowed to a crawl. She took the opportunity to read some of the data she uncovered. It was certainly in violation of protocol, but since her boss has been so secretive and she felt like rewarding herself after suffering a long bout of blistering cold, she went on with it.

'Salvage Report 37.8.31

27/09/73CE

The Mobile Suit was a complete wreck. The arms and legs as well as the backpack were missing. Only the head and part of the torso remained. There were a total of 1,537 pieces of parts scattered around the crash site within a five-mile radius that was recovered.'

The report went on about the salvaging operation that took place at the crash site. Next, she focused her attention on a technical report that detailed the technology of the recovered mobile suit.

'Technical Report 123.4.67

05/12/73CE

The Mobile Suit was powered by a fusion generator. The thermonuclear fuel was determined to be deuterium and helium-3. Helium-3 is a rare isotope of helium that is virtually non-existent within the Earth Sphere. The power generation concept of this fusion system is of great interest to us since it can theoretically bypass the Neutron Jamming phenomena as well as the Treaty of Junius.'

She skipped the rest of the report and opened another one that talked about the human origins of the machine.

'Evaluation Report 3.6

Page 105

The Mobile Suit's computer database was completely destroyed. However, the black box was recovered and was found to be completely intact. At this time, our engineers are still trying to access the data stored within it.

The markings on the exterior of the suit as well as the labels found in the cockpit are a mixture of Roman alphabets and Arabic numerals, in other words, modern English. This is the clearest evidence to support the 'human origin' theory of the suit.

Some of the markings can be interpreted in a meaningful way. For instance, found on the exterior of the torso were the words EF and RX-93 and the phrase Londo Bell. The word EF can be intuitively interpreted as an abbreviation for Earth Federation. The word RX-93 can probably be the suit's model code. The phrase Londo Bell can probably be the name of the suit's squadron or a higher formation.'

She felt like the victim of some cheap trick. There was nothing in these reports that conclusively indicated that the recovered mobile suit had an origin that was 'not of this world'. Her interest in that machine waned, and she focused instead on finding out what had led to the decision to abandon the facility.

'Activities Log

05/01/74/1700

The order to abandon the facility was issued.

05/01/74/1730

Self-destruct sequence was initiated. The countdown duration was set to exactly 1 hour. Prisoner loaded aboard the Augustus to be relocated to Victoria.'

"Oh shit!" she cursed loudly beneath her visor. Her digital HUD showed the numbers 1825, which for some reason, shone like they were lottery-winning numbers. They also told her that she has 5 minutes before her body parts would be scattered across Russia.

* * *

"Sir, you better see this!"

Captain Felipe Corales rushed to the side of the young officer that manned the AsuW station, who was a girl, probably a fresh graduate from some Naval Academy judging by how young she was, with a rank of Ensign who was probably overeager to proof herself in a male-dominated line of work. Corales has always opposed having women serving onboard a warship, especially one that stayed beneath the surface of the sea all the time. All it did was wear down the morale of the men. He made up his mind to vent all his frustration on her if she did not have something worth his time on her screen.

"What?" Corales bellowed before even having a look at the screen.

The young Ensign flinched, much to his satisfaction. "A...A...," she stammered, much to his annoyance. Damn, you pinhead doll, he mentally cursed his subordinate. Women really are too soft to be soldiers.

"An explosion over the target area," Corales's XO, Lee Wang, told him. He was bending over the victimized girl, looking at a large screen which displayed directly what was seen by the Ulysses's periscope: a large explosion over the submarine shelters of Severodvinsk that was slowly forming up a mushroom cloud of dust and smoke.

"My god...," was all Corales could utter.

"Com, get a lock on Winter's signal," Lee yelled to the communications officer behind him without turning, his attention still glued to the rising column of inferno that has engulfed the old submarine base.

"Positive, sir, I have a signal...and a message," came the reply.

"What?" Corales, having regained him composure, began to take charge of the situation. "Spill it!" he yelled.

"Target area destroyed. Data recovered. Change of mission priorities. Request immediate extraction," the com officer read aloud.

"What?" Corales said for the third time. "I'm not risking the exposure of my boat in hostile waters," he said, clearly irritated. "That girl is a 81st, does she not know any SOP?" he added to reinforce his decision.

"What shall I reply?" the com officer asked. His superior's abusive behavior was a habit, one he had grown accustomed to, but that did not excuse him from the fact that he did not show any concern at all for a fellow soldier who just barely avoided getting blown to bits by a massive explosion.

"Tell her to walk her ass back here," Corales said smugly.

"Sir...," the com officer, against common sense, was about to protest when another text message appeared on his screen, which he quickly read aloud. "Another message. It says that the Eurasians moved a prisoner from the facility, but if we hurry, we can catch up with the transport ship and recover him."

Corales was at a crossroad. Certainly the latest explanation from Winters justified an aerial extraction, but he was not going to condescend in front of his subordinates, and as such, he was indecisive. Lee afforded him a glance and almost immediately, alleviated his dilemma with an order to the helm station. "Blow all tanks. Surface immediately!"

* * *

Maya Winters stared at the ascending column of red smoke from the flare she had thrown. She could hear the whipping sound produced by the rotors of an approaching helicopter while the sound made by its modified engines was barely audible. But these sounds and the helicopter in the distance seemed surreal at the moment, like they weren't actually there, or like they were there but she wasn't. How did she escape, she had asked herself just that when she came to her senses.

Five minutes. She was told she has this much time left. She kept this number in her head as she rushed through the dark corridor, into the storage chamber and into the elevator shaft. Five minutes. She could still make it, she told herself as her motorized winch opposed gravity to haul her to safety.

Suddenly it came. Before the roaring inferno came the overpressure wave which slammed into her like a solid wall of steel. Despite the horrendous impact, she was able to roll herself into a ball without breaking any limbs, and was propelled upwards like a mortar shell through its upright barrel.

Did she not have five minutes, she asked herself again. She was slipping between various states of consciousness, with her eyes registering everything in doubles or triples and her ears catching only a monotonic whistling. She was high up in the air at the moment, and if her rendezvous with the shockwave did not kill her, the one with the surface of the earth certainly will.

Suddenly, she felt gravity pulling her down. She felt acutely her altitude and her increasing velocity, rather than see them displayed on her HUD. Not only that, with her eyes closed, she could analyze every inch of her surroundings with unnerving clarity. She felt that she could somehow quantify the bearings and velocities of the winds in the air, the shockwave hurling upwards, the wall of fire in its wake, and even the ambient temperatures. And then, she pulled a handle hanging off her left breast to release her parachute before her unnatural awareness dimmed and then went offline completely.

When she came to, she was lying on the snow just meters from the edge of a massive crater with a broken arm. She immediately contacted the Ulysses.

* * *

**The Barents Sea**

Dimitri Merchin was an impatient officer of the Eurasian Federation. Patience is a virtue, people used to tell him, and certainly patience would be helpful in the odd situation he has found himself in right now. He was to interrogate the sole survivor of the crashed mobile suit they had found in the frigid interior of Siberia, who had awakened from coma. That man was a mess when they found him; he was hypothermic, his bones were shattered and he had lost almost half of his blood. Yet despite the immense damage to his body, he had clung on to his life. He had slept through his ordeal, and after three months, he miraculously woke up, defying the doctors who did not give him any chance at all.

Merchin, like many of the soldiers stationed at Severodvinsk, was surprised by the sudden order to pull out. In addition, they ordered him to oversee the operation of rigging the facility with bombs to destroy it. If he was to speculate, he would say that the security of the facility was compromised. They probably caught a spy or something.

But he was secretly hoping that the evacuation would free him from his current assignment and return him to the frontlines. He had heard about the fall of Arzachel. If those godless Coordinators were going to use that weapon against the remnants of the EA, then he would rather die a warrior's death inside a Dagger, than be butchered like cattle.

But now, instead of going down in a blaze of glory, he was stuck with an obstinate man. And his patience was wearing out. He smashed his fist into the face of his prisoner, who was tied to a chair in front of him.

"For the last time, bastard, tell me about your mobile suit," he demanded.

The prisoner was a man in his late twenties. He has a mop of curly brown hair and brown eyes that glared defiantly at his aggressor. He still wore the white medical gown he was in when he woke up from his lengthy slumber. His face was swollen with bruises and blood was oozing from his nostrils. In reply to Dimitri's question, he merely spat.

"Bastard," was all that came out of Dimitri's mouth before he punched his prisoner again.

"Are we...on Earth?" the prisoner suddenly asked.

It was the first response the prisoner gave him, and Dimitri felt like indulging him. "No, Einstein. We're on Mars."

"Mars?" the prisoner asked again, sounding confused.

"What the fuck, are you dumb? Of course we're on Earth," Dimitri snapped.

"The...the asteroid Axis?" the prisoner put forth another question.

"What?"

"Axis. It was on a collision course with Earth. What happened to it?" the prisoner tried to make his question clearer.

"What Axis? You're not making any sense," Dimitri said, feeling irritated.

The prisoner sighed. Dimitri was surprised that he could afford that kind of response, given the predicament he was in.

"What about the Neo-Zeons. What's their status now?" the prisoner tried again.

"Enough!" Dimitri roared. "I'm the one asking questions, not you. Now tell me about your mobile suit," he renewed his earlier demand.

"It's called the Nu Gundam," the prisoner replied.

"Now tell me your name," Dimitri demanded. Great, he thought. The prisoner's will was broken by his iron fists. He vowed to find more use for them after this.

"Amuro Ray," came the reply.


	3. Phase 2

**Phase 2: Ambush**

**CE 74 January**

**Norwegian Sea**

"You poor thing!"

Maya Winters opened her eyes to find a young girl standing over her. She has a petite body of five-feet-five, blonde hair that fell in two braids behind her, and was dressed in a pink officer uniform.

"Are you alright?" Maya's visitor asked. Maya was resting on a bunk in the infirmary of the _Ulysses_ with her lower left arm cast in plaster.

"Fine," Maya replied listlessly. The brunette with her hair tied in a ponytail was not in the mood to entertain her visitor. The trauma of being launched more than a thousand feet into the air and then crashing onto the ground with enough force to fracture an ulna despite having deployed a parachute to slow her descent onto soft snow, still lingered in the form of aches all over her body and severe pain at the damaged section of her left arm. She began to regret refusing the ship physician's offer to administer morphine to alleviate her condition.

"What about your arm? It looks bad!" Maya's visitor asked, sounding concerned. "Oh no, what if you can't drive a mobile suit anymore?" she exclaimed with horror. Tears started to well in her eyes.

Maya stared at her visitor. One could not help but be moved by the younger girl. The world was burning and everybody was furiously seeking reprieve for themselves, yet this girl was focusing her concern on someone she barely knew, having met Maya's acquaintance only five days ago at Guam when she joined the _Ulysses_ along with a battalion of commandoes from the 73rd Marine Corps.

"Relax, Susan. It's just a fracture. The Doc said I'll recover completely. There's nothing to worry about," Maya replied meaningfully this time.

"Really? I'm glad," Ensign Susan Albest said happily. She clasped her hands together and smiled at Maya. "You know, I almost thought you didn't make it. I saw the explosion on my screen. It was huge!" she explained her initial worry.

"But the captain was merciless. If not for the XO, he would've ordered you to walk all the way back," Susan reported with slight distaste.

Maya's eyebrow twitched. She was fuming inside. It was news to her that she was almost left on her own in that godforsaken place. She realized that Corales has a problem with his attitude since day one, but she did not expect him to jeopardize her life due to his personal feelings. She immediately decided that she would not entrust her life to him anymore. But Lee was a good officer. He has always been the pillar of moderation on the ship, checking Corales's harsh treatment of his crew on many occasions.

"And he's so rude. He never has anything nice to say to me. I'm sure I never did anything wrong, I was top of my class, you know, so why is he always picking on me? Sometimes, I feel like I'm suffocating, and being confined inside this boat all the time is making things worse," Susan poured out her grievance.

Maya sighed softly. _Get a grip of yourself. You're an officer, not a city schoolgirl. And we're on a warship, not a luxury liner. Corales may be socially inept but you are simply being childish about menial things._ But a small part of her empathized Susan's frustration; she had her share of bad superiors during her stint in the 81st Mobile Independent Battalion. No, bad would not even do justice to their inadequacies. They practically served EA mobile suits and the precious lives that drove them on silver platters to the ZAFT battleship _Minerva_.

"Why don't you file for a transfer?" Maya suggested.

Susan did a double take. Maya's reply caught her completely by surprise. She was merely complaining about how depressing her day was, without giving any thoughts to actual solutions, like the one presented to her now.

"I mean after this mission. When we return to Guam," Maya elaborated.

"Well, I don't like the captain. But I don't hate my job," Susan closed the issue. "Anyway, the exchange rate between our surface ships and ZAFT's are horrible. You have to be suicidal to want to transfer to one of those ships. If you ever cross path with the _Minerva_, well, goodbye," Susan said somberly.

_They're not that scary_. Maya recalled the Battle of Dardanelles where the firepower of the _Minerva_ was subdued by just one mobile suit, the legendary _Freedom_.

"But you know what, we don't have to worry about that anymore because, have you heard?" she asked excitedly, changing the mood of the conversation.

Maya shook her head. She could clearly detect joy in Susan's voice, so she guessed that it must be some good news. Susan stared at her silently, as if attempting to build up some kind of climax, but Maya merely returned her stare with a nonchalant one. Finally, Susan yielded and burst the bubble.

"The war is over!"

The words that escaped Susan's lips were like panacea. Suddenly, Maya felt invigorated, as if all the soreness and pain plaguing her body has been completely flushed away. She jerked up from her bunk and stared at Susan, this time genuinely anxious for more details.

"It's finally, really over. It was broadcasted over all frequencies just now. As soon as I heard, I rushed here to tell you right away," Susan began obliging her. "The ZAFT and Orb fleets that were engaging each other near the moon had ceased hostilities and had agreed to an armistice."

Maya slumped back onto her bunk. "So it's really over," she whispered to herself.

* * *

**Den Helder Naval Base, Netherlands**

Amuro woke up with a start. He sat up and looked around him. He was in some kind of holding cell, evident from the bland grey walls covering three sides of the room and a row of vertical steel bars covering the remaining side. A bunk, a toilet bowl and a washing basin furnished the room with some basic necessities. A door was built into the bars, and when he quickly ran up to try it, he found that it was locked.

Amuro suddenly felt groggy and gripped the bars for support. He must have been drugged, he reasoned, because he was sure that he was on a ship, for it rocked and smelled salty the whole time, but now the place was stable and reeked with the stench of urine, and he couldn't remember when the transition took place.

He licked his parched lips, but even his tongue felt dry. He walked up to the basin and tried the tap. It was rusty, but that provided only token resistance, so he quickly has the knob turning, and to his relief, clear water pour out of the spout. He immediately put his mouth on the path of the running water and took in large gulps of what seemed like the sweetest liquid he has ever consumed. When he has enough, he straightened up to look at the mirror.

He saw a man that did not look as youthful as he remembered, with stubs of hair protruding beneath his chin and around his lips, and on his head was a thick mass of unkempt brown hair that looked like the worn-out head of a broom. He winched slightly as his eyes fell on the reddish mounds that rose from his cheeks which seemed to have such a specular characteristic that it reflected the light from a single bulb that was hanging from the ceiling, as if highlighting them as an unnatural part of his face, which they were, as he recalled the punishment he received from a man who seemed to relish in brutality.

That man, his host, had been interrogating him while they were onboard a waterborne ship. His host's questions were not particularly sharp and were centered on the technology of the Nu Gundam's reactor, which was well known info, so Amuro accommodated him in exchange for info about his current predicament. He found out that he was in the custody of the military of a country called the Eurasian Federation which was part of the Earth Alliance, a global organization that was waging war against a military entity known as ZAFT. These names sounded vague so he tried to connect them with those he was familiar with; ZAFT as an organization descended from some Zeonic faction, Earth Alliance as a new name for the Earth Federation and Eurasia as some joint east-west European political entity. Still, it did not make sense because his host claimed to have no knowledge of the Federation or Zeon. It was more like he had woke up to a dream world, or as he recalled, sometimes called an parallel world where reality was twisted, to which he concluded, would not be possible unless he was dead. The only other feasible explanation was that he has contracted mental illness, in other words, he was crazy. Or was it just some sick person playing a prank on him? He discounted the latter as his senses told him that his host was not lying to him about this strange world he found himself in.

The slick sound of boots stomping in the distance brought his attention to the outer side of the steel bars which spread out as a corridor with many similar adjacent cells adjoining it. Amuro closed his eyes, and at once felt rather than heard, three men, one whom he had recently came to be acquainted with, approaching his cell. He sighed. Another round of beatings.

* * *

**Royal Palace, Orb Union **

A young girl read a text message from her brother again for the umpteenth time. It was near impossible to obtain audio-visual communication with him right now as he was in PLANT while she was stuck on Earth and radio communication between both sides has yet to be completely restored after interdiction activities by Orb, ZAFT and EA forces. The message was brief, announcing the safety of all her friends who had fought, and then asking how she was doing. It was meant to be a personal message, but his brother was not the type to express himself colorfully, so she ended up with a message that was as dull as the 1000-page debriefing she had received from Kisaka.

Cagalli Yula Attha sighed loudly. That personal message was the only one she has received so far. As boring as it was, it was the thought that counted. She was glad to receive it, to hear Kira telling her personally that the war was finally over, that everything was going to be alright, and that 'he' was in good health too. But this 'he', he did not copy Kira's deed. There was nothing from him. It felt like Athrun Zala was dead. Kira, being the airhead that he was, would not write a sentence that read 'Athrun sends his love' or 'Athrun asks about you' if that man did not really say so, and because he didn't, Cagalli found the message to be boring.

She missed him. And she was infuriated by this fact. At times, she really hated this feminine feature, this feeling of discomfort when a particular person was not around, this uncontrollable desire to seek that person. And it was probably made worse by her being in 'that time of the month'.

Cagalli took a ring out of her pocket and stared at its shiny red stone nested between two spiraled bands. At times, she wondered what this ring meant to him. It meant the world to her when he put it around her finger. When the war first took them far away from one another, both physically and ideologically, this ring stayed with her, and she felt that a part of him was staying with her too, giving her strength to march forward.

She slid the ring around her finger, brought her hand up and stared at the ring. And then, she sighed again.

* * *

**Norwegian Sea**

"Surface signal, bearing 1-6-3, range 5500 and bearing 2-6-5, range unknown."

"Identify," Lee ordered the sonar officers of the _Ulysses_. The sonar station was a two-man team tasked respectively with ASW and ASuW signal processing, but the MFCs available to them were capable of each other's task since it was a matter of switching software, and Naval Doctrine dictated that bridge crew cross-trained as widely as possible, so while one kept track of the bogies, the other aptly identified them.

"Blade acoustics matching database data on _Danilov_-class cruisers," sonar reported.

"Signal processing complete. Confirming three Danilovs, bearing 1-6-3, range 5300, speed 30 knots. Confirming two Danilovs, bearing 2-6-7, range 7000, speed 30 knots," sonar presented a more detailed evaluation of the approaching surface group.

"Eurasians. Skip, you think they're on to us?" Lee asked his CO.

"You think? They're moving at tactical speeds, for crying out loud. Take her down fast," Corales growled.

A _Danilov_-class cruiser was a large surface warship equipped with a versatile vertical launch missile system that was capable of delivering antisubmarine weapons in the form of rocket-boosted torpedoes or depth charges in salvos. A submarine engaged in a silent run of less than 10 knots has no chance of escaping unscratched if a depth charge kill box, the 3D space in which depth charges detonate synchronously to resonate with each other to maximize the spread of overpressure waves, was centered on her. Her only option was to dive deeper in order to hopefully avoid the brunt of the overpressure waves. But even such a maneuver would not avail the hunted submarine when five such warships were bringing their arsenal to bear, as they can now greatly enlarge the coverage of their weapons' lethal zone.

And then, the ASW helicopters that could be hovering above the hapless submarine were another cause of great concern. The _Ulysses_ was blind to aircraft activity unless she surfaced, and she has neither the opportunity nor the audacity to do so right now. Each Danilov could carry a maximum of two ASW helicopters, bringing the maximum number of torpedo-firing platforms that could attack from unknown vectors to ten.

"Maximum down trim. Fill bow tanks now," Lee complemented his CO's order.

"New signals detected. Depth charges incoming," sonar warned.

"Battle stations!" Corales yelled.

"Attention all hands! Battle stations! Battle stations! This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!" the communication station alerted the whole ship. The ship's interior lighting was now flashing red.

As if a cue, the incoming depth charges exploded tens of meters above the ship, vaporizing and displacing bodies of water at astronomical rates that translated into overpressure waves hurling outward in all directions. Those that raced downward quickly caught up with the ship and the impacts left her shaking up and down, struggling to keep her center of gravity. If it should be lost, she would flip, with no means to recover other than to wait for a rescue ship to show up or for the surface group to finish its job.

"Damage report!" Corales screamed to the engineering station.

"Hull integrity is holding," came a relieving reply.

"Prepare for ASuW combat," Corales said while turning to the ASuW station only to find it empty. He could feel veins in his head popping under the pressure of the tremendous fury that was building up inside him. "Where-"

"I granted Albest permission to visit Winters," Lee cut him off. This was not the time to point fingers or find faults with each other. Their survival was a stake right now. Whether they could surface later to see daylight or be crushed by the massive underwater pressure around them would be decided within the next few minutes.

Corales waved dismissively in response.

As the crew watched and listened quietly, the ship descended deeper and deeper into the sea. The unpleasant sound of twisting metal that was becoming more and more audible sent chills down the spines of those who caught it. The Ulysses was receiving unimaginable pressure from the surrounding seawater, and was reminded about it with the twisting metal sound that was gradually nipping more and more eardrums.

"Depth 400," the driving station reported.

The driver licked his lip. It was common for a nuclear submarine to dive so deep, but the _Ulysses_ was not a new ship, having served for 30 years as a strategic boat before being refurbished and retrofitted to fit the mission requirements of the new times. She was no more a harbinger of mass destruction, but instead carried two mobile suits and a battalion-sized detachment of commandoes within the compartment that once housed SLBM silos. And right now, the driver was worried about the old ship's tolerance to the punishment she was receiving from the unforgiving sea.

"Depth charges incoming," sonar warned again.

"Keep diving," Corales ordered. "Those bastards must have been tailing our ass ever since we blew tanks in the White Sea," he cursed. Thirty years of experience of skippering submarines has gone down the drain when he blunderingly surfaced his ship to rescue Winters.

"Depth 500," the driver reported. The sound of metal twisting could be heard inside the bridge with alarming frequency.

The incoming depth charges exploded, still as close as ever, jostling the ship roughly, as if mocking her feeble attempts to avoid her doom. There was no options to choose from, no room to maneuver. Either the ever increasing underwater pressure would see to her demise or the antisubmarine weapons onboard the warships above would. The _Ulysses_ was a submarine modified for special missions that occur on the ground and has equipment that was optimized for such purposes, and thus was ill-suited for any kind of direct combat, especially against a large surface group. In fact, the heavily armed commando battalion that was onboard right now was a testament of the futility of her struggle. These men would easily smash their enemies on the surface but were nothing but dead weight right now hundreds of meters beneath the sea.

"Damage report!" Corales demanded furiously. He did not enjoy being on the receiving end of incessant pummeling.

"Breach on Deck 2. Deck 2 is flooding," engineering responded.

"Seal Deck 2," Lee ordered.

"They must be lighting us up with their Lorenzini sensors," Corales muttered bitterly. These uncanny sensors were like the devil to submariners, being capable of providing a surface user with a direct view of the underwater environment, from the various shapes and lacerations of the seabed's surface to a silently lurking submarine. Their only shortcoming was the degradation of resolution as the monitoring radius expands.

"Alpha Group, now bearing 1-7-7, range 4000, speed 33 knots. Beta Group, bearing 3-2-2, range 5600, speed 35 knots," sonar updated the positions of the surface group.

"They're bracketing us in a pincer. I'll be damned if I let them continue hitting my boat with impunity," Corales said hotly.

"Tubes 1 to 8 loaded with Mark 90s. On your mark, Skip," Lee reported from his seat at the ASuW station. The Mark 90 was a heavyweight torpedo capable of breaking the lightly armored Danilovs in half with just one detonation under the keel, and was guided to its target by either active sonar homing or a human operator onboard the firing ship via a wire connected to its rear, and would travel a maximum distance of 30 miles at speeds averaging 100 knots. But this weapon would not be effective against dedicated ASW warships that were capable of deploying hard-kill countermeasures in the form of supercavitating antitorpedo torpedoes.

"No. Load tubes 1 to 8 with Corinthoses," Corales corrected Lee. The Corinthos was a large subsonic antiship missile that carried a fragmentation warhead designed to deal as much damage as possible to its vicinity in the event of interception by CIWS bullets. Similarly, this weapon would not be effective against a fast-reacting, large-caliber CIWS such as the latest Igelstellung 75mm, but would give the obsolete 20mm CIWS onboard the Danilovs a horrid time.

"What?" Lee expressed his astonishment. "We're too deep to fire those," he argued.

Corales issued him a 'do-not-defy-me' look, silencing him and setting him to work.

"Prepare for mobile suit launch," Corales ordered the flight station. Traditionally, a submarine has no capability to carry mobile suits, and in the advent of the first war, the Alliance's fleet of Tarawa-class carriers were converted to support mobile suit operations, and was deemed adequate to fulfill operational requirements, thus dealing a blow to the development of dedicated underwater mobile suit carriers, despite ZAFT having the excellent Vosgulovs at their disposal. However, some cooler heads persevered, and in Norfolk and San Diego, a few decommissioned boomers were retrofitted with vital equipment like the NJC device, variable linear catapults and mobile suit support bays, so that experimentation with submersible mobile suit carriers could finally commence. The _Ulysses_ was born from such a venture, and although modest in comparison with the ZAFT behemoths, she nevertheless presented the AFN with new capabilities.

"Sir, we're 500 meters beneath the surface!" this time, the flight officer protested.

"Do it!" Corales yelled. He could not believe the nonsense his underlings were spewing. They were paid to follow orders, not start a mutiny.

Lee could hardly believe his ears. They have two mobile suits onboard, both stolen ZAFT aerial models that were armed with rockets and hand-carried rifles, but these mobile suits were significantly outgunned by the combined firepower of five heavily armed Danilovs that lurked above. And to add insult to injury, one of the mobile suits was unavailable because its pilot was lying in the infirmary nursing a broken arm! Sending one mobile suit out was like serving meat to ravenous predators.

"Felipe, what are you thinking?" he asked gravely.

"Victory," Corales hissed. "These are ASW units," he said while poking at the red icons representing the enemy ships on the sonar screen. "Standard Eurasian ASW weapons packaging; if you load depth charges, then you don't load SAMs.

"You're counting on them not carrying SAMs? How can you even be sure? What if one or two are AAW screening ships?" Lee asked incredulously.

"We're outgunned here. The best chance we have is to surprise them," Corales countered. "It's do or die," he added fiercely.

"I understand," Lee conceded. "But we have only one DINN available. Winters can't drive hers," he reminded his CO.

"I know that!" Corales replied hotly.

"Com, get Brown on the line," Corales ordered the communication station to connect him with one of the mobile suit pilots. The 'battle stations' order was issued minutes ago, and any available pilot should be keeping his machine's seat hot by now.

"You asked for me sir?" the pilot named Brown enquired through the intercom.

"Launch on my mark. I'm counting on you to take all the ships out, boy," Corales barked into the intercom's microphone.

"Yes sir!" came a nervous reply. The AMF-101 DINN was a Coordinator mobile suit designed for sustained aerial combat in atmospheric conditions and was adequately armed for such an objective. However, it was ill-suited for anti-shipping missions, such as the one it would soon participate in, and the problems associated with such misuse magnified twofold when the complex controls were mismatched with a Natural controller, despite the installation of a man-machine-integration OS.

"All hands, reverse angle," Corales ordered. "Driver, blow all bow tanks. Up trim 90 degrees. Maximum speed."

The driver made sure he was strapped securely to his seat before yanking back his steering bar as hard as possible. In aerial maneuvers, it would be called a vertical climb. The 170 meter long albacore hull of the _Ulysses_ tilted its nose upwards until it was vertically aligned, and then as the driver throttled the main engines to the max, it began to drive upwards at full acceleration using her MHD propulsors.

The extravagant antic of the _Ulysses_ was caught by the surface group's networked sensors and then displayed on tactical screens as a red icon that was rapidly losing depth. Fire control systems spelled out firing solutions and the fuzes of the next salvo of depth charges were reprogrammed to detonate at deeper depths. Carrier missiles were launched vertically from their tube launchers that were arrayed in front of the bridge superstructures, trailing columns of white smoke. These missiles rose to the pinnacle of their climb, arced downwards and descended to predetermined coordinates via ballistic flight paths, where their warhead sections separated and then each dispensed six rod-like HE devices into the sea.

"Incoming depth charges," sonar warned. The station's ASW tactical screen was riddled with a multitude of red icons, each representing a depth charge at a certain depth, each capable of exploding with the force of more than a ton of TNT. Thanks to the ultra-sensitive Lorenzini sensors and heightened awareness generated by being seated at right angle to gravitational pull, the _Ulysses_'s crew could discern with unnerving clarity every death-bringing weapon that was raining down on them.

The depth charges approached and then passed by the upright hull of the _Ulysses_ uneventfully. They did not detonate.

"They miscalculated the depth. Our unorthodox ascent is a lot faster than they thought," Corales explained smugly to his surprised crew. As if validating his assessment, dull explosions were caught by sonar at least 100 meters beneath them.

One of the sonar officers whistled. "They're way off."

"They can slot in one more salvo before we break surface. They're not going to miss this time," Lee warned.

"I'm counting on it," Corales said calmly, contrary to his more intense behavior earlier.

Lee stared at his CO. Felipe Corales was a man in his early fifties and was a traditional navy man in every sense; he was born into the household of a third generation naval officer, spent his childhood staying next to the sea, made his living on it, and now was preparing to be martyred under it. Lee had known the man since his days as a naval cadet and was glad to be reassigned under him onboard the _Ulysses_ two years ago. Lee felt that the man was disgraced after his unjust bar from joining the 8th Fleet which had since been decimated along with Rear Admiral Halberton in low Earth orbit. A career in the stars high above the seas would have been a fitting tribute to his heritage and a fine reward for almost thirty years of excellence in the Silent Service. Lee was not privy to the reasons of the man's setback, but he must not have taken the debacle well, for he did not apply for a position in space ever again. Felipe Corales was arguably the finest officer in the AFN, Lee believed. If he had made it to space, perhaps the dismal fortunes of the Alliance's space fleet could have been reversed.

"Depth 200," the driver reported, his voice sounding tense. He was drenched in sweat and the steering bar felt slippery under his grip. He knew that the captain has a plan, he seemed so calm and confident now, so he did not pay heed to the captain's last remark, but somehow his heart seemed to skip a beat, and then a chain reaction occurred, and now he was simply panicking.

"Ahead full. Down trim 30 degrees," Corales ordered.

The driver took a second to clear his mind before repeating aloud Corales's instruction while executing them simultaneously. The ship quickly lowered her inclination to a much more comfortable angle.

"Alright. All hands, brace for impact," Corales ordered.

"All hands, brace for impact. I repeat, all hands, brace for impact," the communications officer's voice rang throughout the ship. The crew was not attentive to the order as there were no imminent threats.

"But there are no depth charges in the water," one of the sonar officers commented. But he barely finished his sentence when his headphones blasted the din of multiple splashes into his ears. "There they are!" he reported.

"Oh my god! There're thousands of them! Captain!" his partner exclaimed fearfully.

Corales's response was merely a check on the buckles of the safety belts that kept him secured to his seat.

"Mobile suit launch on my mark," he reminded the flight station.

"Mobile suit launch on your mark," the flight officer confirmed.

Depth charges exploded around the _Ulysses_, this time not sparing the ship from damage. The overpressure waves slammed upon her hull with such force that anechoic tiles were peeled off, the starboard hydroplane was severed, the electronic masts on top of the sail were torn off, and in the bow, hull integrity was compromised such that through several breaches, seawater began flooding the innards of the ship. But the ship braved the terrible storm and continued pushing forward towards the surface, now brimming with fury and ready to exact vengeance.

"Damage report!" Corales screamed to the engineering station.

"Hull breach on Decks 1, 3 to 5. Decks 1 to 7 and 9 are flooding."

"Seal Decks 1, 3 to 5. Damage control, stop the flooding now," Lee growled into the intercom.

"Radar, EO and com gear destroyed. Starboard plane destroyed."

"Bow tank 5, 7 and 8 leaking."

"The torpedo room is flooding."

Corales closed his ears to the reports on the suffering of his precious boat. Lee would take care of the details. He always did. "Almost there. Hold on just a little longer," he cajoled his boat silently.


	4. Phase 3

**Phase 3: Rescue**

**CE 74 January**

**Norwegian Sea**

"Depth 50," the driver of the _Ulysses_ announced.

"Flight, mark!" Corales ordered.

"But sir, we can't launch underwater," the flight controller protested. "The linear catapult doesn't work-"

"Open the launch hatch and have Brown launch under his own power," Corales interrupted him.

"Yes sir," the flight controller acknowledged nervously, still skeptical of the viability of his CO's plan. "Launch hatch-2 opened. Catapult-2 extension aborted. Initiating mobile suit launch-"

"God damn bitching lingo!" Corales cursed. "Brown, get the fuck out there now!" he yelled into the radio handset that he had swiped from the somewhat incompetent flight controller's hand.

"Driver, fast fill bow tanks. Down trim 60 degrees," Corales ordered.

"Fast fill bow tanks. Down trim 60 degrees," the driver repeated while pushing the steering bar forward. Seawater rapidly filling the ship's bow tanks made a rumbling noise that could be clearly heard by both the apprehensive bridge crew and the delighted enemy sonar operators. Due to the lost of the sail's starboard hydroplane, the ship's nose diving rate was greatly hampered and has to be compensated by higher filling rates of the bow ballast tanks at the expense of increased noise levels.

Lt. Kato Brown glanced at a small photo of a smiling girl with black hair stuck onto the gap between two large MFDs in front of him. The left MFD displayed the bootup sequence of his mobile suit's operating system, an essential ingredient that allowed a Natural like him to pilot his machine, a ZAFT-manufactured AMF-101 DINN.

"Brown, get the fuck out there now!" the radio squawked, the CO's unmistakable coarse usage of language lashing his ears. Wait, the sensible portion of his brain that had just finish processing the latest order told him. Did Captain Corales ordered him to launch now? His altimeter still indicated that he was below sea level, or more precisely 30 meters below it. He knew it could theoretically be done as his spaceflight-certified DINN was capable of operation in shallow waters but he has never practiced such a maneuver before.

Suddenly, the ship's upward angle dropped. The silent environment of the _Ulysses_ was broken by the sound of ballast tanks being brutishly flooded. At that instant, the harness fastening the feet and shoulders of Brown's machine came off and now, Brown could feel his machine being launched forward by both inertia and the thrust of his main engines that were already engaged at maximum output.

"Kato Brown, DINN, launch!"

Blue seawater greeted his digital viewports which quickly turned into white splashes as he exited the watery boundary that separated his launching point and the sky above. His machine, painted in purple and black and emblazoned with the distinct red 'Z' of ZAFT, ascended to an altitude of about 500 meters from momentum alone before engaging its flight mode by performing a limited mechanical reconfiguration: an aerodynamic head shroud swinging down onto his machine's head, and the three pairs of wings extending from the backpack. The machine continued ascending in a zoom climb while the reconfiguration took place and then angled into a horizontal cruise after it was completed, allowing the head-mounted sensors to scan the sea below him.

Kato checked his tactical display. Multiple aerial and surface contacts were detected in the microwave and IR spectrum; three helicopters directly below him and two surface warships 4000 meters to his left. Much to his surprise, the helicopters, most probably ASW units, were still hovering at their initial positions. SOP would be dispersing as widely as possible while dispensing countermeasures and activating electronic defense. Not that he was complaining, but the Alliance really needed a radical RMA. Captain Corales's incessant rants about the low quality of OMNI's recruitment and training programs, coupled with the appointment of an officer corps dominated by Blue Cosmos radicals were on the mark.

Kato aimed his MMI-M100 shotgun at the tightly packed helicopter formation below him and fired. A burst of twenty 30mm tungsten balls erupted from the muzzle of his left hand weapon and accelerated towards their prey in a diverging pattern, hitting the latter in the main rotors and top fuselage, which broke several rotor blades and printed fist-sized holes on aluminum body panels. If one has auditory devices picking up sounds, what could be heard would be the wheezing sounds of helicopters auto-rotating wildly followed by the splashing sound of them plunging stomach first into the sea.

The sea suddenly expelled large canisters into air, one after another, until there were eight of them flying, during which the lead canister split into two halves to reveal the flat-nosed cylindrical body of a Corinthos antiship missile, which then ignited its solid rocket engine to start propelling itself towards its target. Its colleagues followed suit, firstly ejecting their underwater protective shell, then activating their engines and then flying interception courses towards their targets.

The missiles climbed to about 1000 meters and then fell to approach the _Danilov_-class cruisers on Kato's left via ballistic trajectories. Kato dived to merely 5 meters above the somewhat choppy sea and proceeded to approach the same warships via a sea-skimming trajectory. The high-low attack path worked! The defenders' CIWS and main guns aimed high and spewed lead at the Corinthoses dropping from above, allowing Kato's DINN to cross enough distance to put their hulls within his weapons envelope. As the CIWS and main guns blew away the last offending missile and started to swivel down, Kato unleashed all available firepower at them. The MMI-M76 assault rifle held in his right hand raked the bow of the warship on the right, smashing 76mm API warheads into the lightly armored main gun turret, VLS array and bridge deck, which set them ablaze and catalyzed a catastrophic explosion of the HE munitions still remaining in the VLS tubes, consequently sending the warship down under. The rocket pods on the left portion of his torso and his shotgun opened up against the left warship, the former turning the forward portion of the superstructure into a burning mass of molten metal while the latter punching holes into the sensor mast and port deck walls. He missed the VLS array by a meter, preventing another catastrophic explosion from occurring due to the crude damage tolerance of the _Danilov_-class cruisers.

"Beta-1 sinking! Beta-2 on fire!" Brown called his kills grimly. He realized at once that servicemen's lives were lost and children somewhere were made orphans, but the worst part was that they were not at war at all; peace was a happening reality in space right now, but he was powerless to do anything else in this struggle for survival.

* * *

"Beta-1 sinking! Beta-2 on fire!"

The bridge crew of the _Ulysses_ immediately applauded their hard-earned victory over part of the surface group that has been relentless in terrorizing them.

"I don't get it. They're not firing any SAMs at all," the flight controller remarked.

"A pure ASW group with no AAW capability? What kind of commander sent them out?" Lee shook his head.

"The same kind that lost the war to those Coordinators," Corales blamed. "We did not lose to their superiority, we lost to our inferiority."

"Raider-1 is engaging Alpha Group," the flight controller reported.

"Taking heavy AAA!" Kato's voice squawked on the radio. Due to the ship being submerged, all data from tactical to voice were transferred via a one way quantum communication line, in this case, from Kato's DINN to the ship's flight controller. This meant that Kato could not receive any instruction from the ship.

"Charge at Alpha Group. Fire everything we got. Cover him," Corales ordered.

"Corinthoses, fire. Last salvo, Skip," Lee said.

"Shit, I'm hit! _Ulysses_, mayday, mayday! Help me!" Brown called for help desperately over the radio.

"Hang on, we're coming! Loading tubes 1 to 8 with Mk 90s," Lee yelled futilely, knowing that the doomed pilot could not hear him.

"Miyuki, I love you!" came Lt Kato Brown's last words before his transmission signal went offline.

"Raider-1 contact lost," the flight controller reported shakily to a somberly silent bridge.

Suddenly, the ship was rocked an explosion above her which was so powerful that it deafened her crew for a few seconds. In the bridge, showers of sparks were sprouting everywhere, scalding some of the crew.

"Damage report!" Corales yelled. His forehead felt oddly wet so he put his hand on it, only to find it smeared with sickening red fluid when he took it down to have a look.

"Catapult-2 destroyed. Breach on Deck 25. Decks 25 to 30 on fire," engineering reported. Deck 25 was Kato's mobile suit storage bay, so this was as if the ship was bidding farewell to him in an eerie way.

"Damage control, move it!" Lee mobilized the firefighting effort.

"Captain, our NJC has stopped!" engineering did not know when to quit bringing bad news.

"Switch over to battery power," Corales said while still staring at his bloodied hand. It must be the blood loss because his voice was more subdued this time despite the gravity of the situation.

"Incoming torpedoes. Number 4, bearing 1-8-1, range 2000," sonar warned.

The incoming fishes brought Corales to his senses. "Countermeasures. Evasive maneuvers," he yelled.

"Too late!" the driver yelled as he turned hard to the left, banking the entire ship by 30 degrees. The EW controller energized the ship's rear facing sonar array to actively 'ping' the incoming torpedoes in order to provide the ship's antitorpedo computer with precise data so that a countermeasure solution could be devised. When the solution was presented to him, the fishes were merely 1000 meters from impacting. Now, he shared the same sentiments as the driver but he was not willing to give up just yet. He executed the countermeasure plan as per the computer solution. From the six rearward facing tubes installed at the stern around the MHD propulsor, two salvoes of 12 supercavitating antitorpedo torpedoes were launched at the incoming torpedoes. These small underwater arrows, merely one fifth the size of their archenemies and powered by a solid rocket motor instead of counter-rotating screws, lanced towards the _Ulysses_'s aggressors at low subsonic speeds and detonated into an overpressure wall between the ship and the incoming torpedoes.

The rear ATT explosions disrupted the incoming torpedoes' seekers, forcing them to abandon their pursuit by detonating prematurely. However, despite successfully warding off fatal impact, the resultant detonations were too close for comfort as they rocked the ship again.

"Fire tubes 1 through 8 at Alpha-1," Corales ordered an eye for an eye.

"ASH mode. Fire tubes 1 through 8 at Alpha-1," Lee complied. Loud clanks could be heard from the torpedo room's damaged machinery and the ship seemingly shuddered as the weapons were discharged from the bow tubes.

"Secondary fire spilling into capacitor compartment. Losing power," engineering who seemed to be saving the worst news for the last, finally broke it. As if a cue, the ship stopped moving.

"Captain! I have no propulsion! Shit, we're sitting duck!" the driver shouted.

"No fucking kidding," were the only words escaping Corales's lips.

"Mobile suit launch! Captain, it's Lt. Winters!" the flight operator yelled.

"What? What the hell is she doing out there in her condition? Get her on the line," Corales demanded angrily.

"Negative. Line down," the flight operator rejected.

"She is our only hope now," Lee said. Several officers nodded in agreement.

* * *

"Maya Winters, DINN, launch!"

The sudden surge of pressure during takeoff was something routine to well-trained mobile suit pilots, and with more than a thousand terrestrial takeoffs under her belt, Maya should be at home with this one that was done 40 meters below the surface of the sea, yet it felt like her body was stung in all places by deadly insects. The injury she was carrying was more severe than she thought. While she was resting on a soft and comfortable mattress, it was hardly felt, but right now on the worn-out seat of her DINN and subjected to inertia, it felt horrible.

"Damn it, Brown! The war is over! It should not be here. Not like this," Maya grumbled to herself as her machine cleared sea level.

The sky exploded with flak fire as the three remaining _Danilov_-class cruisers began fighting the latest airborne threat in the form of Maya's DINN. Maya shifted into flight mode under the cover of smoke and flares that she has launched as soon as she broke the surface of the sea.

Maya rolled and looped in the air, circling the trio of surface warships cautiously outside the engagement envelope of their deadly CIWS. Only their larger caliber main guns were firing at her with fragmentation shells which were causing dents and cracks on her machine despite her best effort to avoid dwelling within the fragmentation coverage zones. She found it hard to approach closer to bring her weapons to bear due to her lame left hand affecting her ability to drive.

Suddenly, there was a window of opportunity. The surface of the sea between Maya's machine and the lead ship erupted into geysers of vapor as the latter's ATT met the _Ulysses_'s heavy torpedoes in a series of massive explosions. Apparently, one or two torpedoes got through as the targeted warship began a sharp turn to the right, presenting her aft and drawing her CIWS coverage zone away from Maya.

Maya dived to sea level with the legs of her machine touching wave crests and the engines spraying seawater upwards on both sides, then charged towards the aft of the blundering warship, barely dodging fire from the other warships that kept exploding behind her. As she came within her weapons range, Maya increased her altitude and strafed the topside of the target along the length of its hull with 76mm API shells. As with what her predecessor did, a shell struck the leftover HE munitions in the VLS tubes and caused a chain reaction that quickly tore the warship into two.

"_Ulysses_, do you copy? Alpha-1 is sinking. Engaging Alpha-2 and 3 now," Maya called her first kill of the day.

She charged at the next _Danilov_ at low level as well from its port side, hiding herself from the third warship. She fired all 24 missiles from her torso launchers in one salvo, spoofing her target's port CIWS to fire at the incoming weapons instead of her. She dived into the sea in such a way that her machine was partially submerged with only the torso popping out of the sea. This lower stance gave her a clear line of sight to her target's port lower hull, which she wasted no time to puncture with the remaining 76mm ammo of her assault rifle. The attack lit up the damaged portion of the hull and sent the warship listing to port.

Thick black smoke curled upwards from the burning hole she just put on the second warship, hiding her from the optical sensors of the third warship's independent CIWS system, which did not register her as she lifted her machine clear of the sea and the sinking hulk of the warship she had just devastated. She aimed her shotgun in the general direction of the last warship and fired it without waiting for any fire solutions. The spread effect of the weapon guaranteed that some shots found their mark. By the time she was empty, that unfortunate warship was riddled with perhaps a hundred fist sized holes in the bridge deck area and the sensor mast.

"Alpha-2 is sinking. Alpha-3 is disabled. All enemy ships neutralized. RTB," Maya called.

* * *

"She did it! In that condition," Lee exclaimed euphorically.

"No fucking shit. Now, let's get my boat running again. I'm not going to wait for the cavalry to appear," Corales yelled to his dazed crew.


	5. Phase 4

**Phase 4: The Prisoner**

**CE 74 January**

**Den Helder Naval Base**

The distant shrill of fire alarm bells jolted Amuro Ray awake. His slumber was restless, and the hard bunk that hosted his body was not helpful. He sat up and rubbed his hands across his face, from his chin to his forehead and then over his tousled hair, grimacing slightly as the swollen bruises on his face stung from contact. He hauled himself up and then to the basin, and bent down to put his face sideways under the running water. Then he turned and let the cold water wash the other side of his face. Then he straightened and shoved water on his face and hair.

Amuro paid no heed to the alarms. There were other things occupying his reasoning faculty at the moment. He listed the plausible causes for his current predicament as insanity, prank, or landing on a strange new world. But he could not improve his understanding of his situation behind bars, without access to pertinent information.

Amuro had concluded with good measure that he was on Earth. The gravity and the air felt the same, his senses told him. These things do not lie. He also believed that the men who interrogated him did not lie either. When one of them told him that he knew nothing of the Federation and the Neo-Zeons, he spoke with a sense of conviction. That man also spoke of an ongoing war between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT, between earth-dwelling Naturals and space-dwelling Coordinators. There is a case, for sure, that can be built on the theory that he has landed in a world not of his own.

Wallowing in questions that he knew too little to answer is not going to alleviate his situation, Amuro chastised himself. He decided that his immediate goal, upon which all his energy should be channeled, is to escape. He walked up to the bars of his prison cell and pushed his cheeks in between them as far as he can. Trying his best to shrug off the stinging sensation of cold steel that bit his skin like angry insects, he peered outside. His eyes ran though the prison cells lining both sides of the dimly lit corridor outside, all empty, and the doors on both ends of the corridor.

"Hello…" Amuro called out hoarsely. He swallowed some saliva and felt a burning sensation on his throat. He licked his lips, immediately feeling them parched. He walked back to the basin and put his mouth under the running water for a drink.

He wasn't going anywhere at the moment, he inferred. Not without some external help. He went back to his bunk and set himself down. Now if only the alarms would shut up, he wished.

Suddenly, a banging sound jerked Amuro up from his bunk. The sound of footsteps bought him standing in attention. A black-clad figure stood on the other side of his prison cell, staring at him with from behind his night vision goggles like a Cyclops from some medieval tale.

"What are you doing?" Amuro asked, hopes beginning to kindle.

"Come with me if you want to live," the newcomer offered along with his outstretched hand.

* * *

Brigadier Alfred Broker was infuriated. His head was buzzing from hangover and from the ringing of the fire alarm, like a bunch of raving teenagers were having a disco party inside his head. He and his colleagues had one too many to drink, like most of the men on his base, to celebrate the end of the war. After the booze fest ended, his aide drove him to his quarters and struggled to put his 200-pound frame to bed. Not even an hour has passed before his aide woke him up to inform him that his base was on fire, thus receiving a few slaps from his not-so-sober self, even though the poor man had nothing to do with it.

"Are we under attack?" Broker asked his aide, a young blonde Lieutenant Paul Danker at his side as both of them were walking slowly towards Broker's waiting black Mercedes.

"Negative sir. Initial reports attributed the cause of the fire to combustion of the fuel tanks at Depot 3. Currently, firefighters are engaging the blaze. No other reports of intrusions have been filed", Danker reported matter-of-factly. Danker was not new to the job, and having grown accustomed to being on the receiving end of Broker's fits, he reciprocated his harsh treatment with coldness.

"An accident? What about the prisoner?" Broker asked. A prisoner had arrived on the cruiser Augustus in the morning, was debarked quietly, and was to wait at Den Helder Naval Base for another ship to move him to Victoria. Broker was not told who he was and from whence he came, only that his security was of paramount importance. What interest the brass has for this prisoner was the last thing on Broker's mind when he received him, with the news of the end of the war glued to his head.

"No reports to indicate anything happening to him sir," Danker eased his superior's worries.

But now the worth of the prisoner has jacked Broker's urgency to see to his proper disposal. "What's his ship's ETA?" Broker inquired. The sooner he got the prisoner off his base, the sooner he could relax. He certainly would not put the stripes on his shoulders on the line for some John Doe, now that the war was over and the depleted officer corps was waiting to be refilled.

"0300 hours sir" Danker answered. He glanced at his wristwatch and elaborated: "In another two hours sir."

"Reinforce his security detail. I'm not having this guy ruin my victory celebrations. And shut that bloody alarm," Broker ordered.

"Sir." Danker answered as he entered Broker's Mercedes behind his superior.

* * *

A group of black-clad figures surrounded an unlit two-storey building. The adjacent buildings were unlit as well. Light came from the moon and from the fire that was ingesting diesel fuel far away. Silence pervaded the area, which added to the eeriness of the darkness.

"Alpha Team in position," whispered one of the black-clad figures over his radio. He was dressed in a black skin-tight suit made of fiber-mesh, and wore body armor over his chest, from which hung magazine pouches. A single lens infrared goggles hung from his ballistic helmet over his eyes, providing him with almost daylight vision in the darkness of the night. He held his assault rifle in a ready-to-fire position, stock pressed to his shoulder, left hand wrapped around the vertical grip, and right forefinger on the trigger. The silenced muzzle of his weapon was aimed at an enemy sentry leaning against a wall ahead.

"Beta Team in position," came another whisper over the radio. The black clad man waved his black-gloved left hand, motioning his men to begin operations. Earlier in the afternoon, eight of them had sneaked into Den Helder Naval Base, by riding amongst frozen beef carcasses on the back of a truck carrying fresh meat to the base, which was hijacked by his accomplices en route. One of them made his way to some fuel depot and started a diversionary fire at some prescribed time, and another hacked the base's computer system and deactivated the security cameras and lighting systems installed at the area that housed their objective. They also blanketed the area with radio jamming via a mobile signal jammer carried on the back of one member.

Their objective was to secure a prisoner and escape the base with him. The eight of them were not enough for this arduous job, for the base was occupied by thousands of armed men, so their only option was to proceed quickly and quietly.

Alpha Team, consisting of four men, opened up their weapons on the sentries at the main entrance of the target building. Then they rushed to the main entrance and entered the building. Simultaneously, the three-man Beta Team attacked the rear of the building.

After their ingress, the commandoes meticulously put down the patrolling sentries in the building. Using acoustic sensors and wearing boots with soles designed for quiet treading, they were able to surprise the sentries around corners and above staircases with the efficiency of prowling predators in some African savanna, with the dim lighting playing their part as well. Any slipups meant their doom, and they could not afford to allow even one sentry to raise the alarm.

Maya Winters raced behind three commandoes to the building's control room. The men in front of her blew the door, tossed a flashbang, and liquidated the dazed occupants of the room, in one swift and well-rehearsed routine. A commando stayed behind to monitor the security cameras that Maya has reactivated.

Maya then raced to the prison section on the first floor. Her companions went outside to secure the perimeter of the building, now that all the sentries were no more. She quickly found the prison cell holding her prized prisoner. She stood at the bars that separated them and scrutinized the man who stood opposite her. He was disheveled from head to toe, wearing a wrinkled sweater and khakis, with an untrimmed face behind a mask of bruises, and a mop of unkempt curly brown hair as a crown.

"What are you doing?" the prisoner asked.

Maya held out her good hand to him, for her left arm was still hurting from her escapade in Russia. "Come with me if you want to live," she gave him his only option of the day.

"Stay back," Maya ordered as she pasted plastic explosives on the lock of Amuro's cell door. She inserted one end of a wire into the plastic mound she has made and plugged the other end into a handheld device, fumbling the process as she struggled with the pain in her fractured left arm. She took a few steps back and blew the lock with the flick of a switch.

"Come. We must hurry," Maya urged. She ran a few steps and glanced back to see the prisoner at her heels. Satisfied, she returned her attention to the task of escaping.

As Maya and the prisoner exited the building from its rear, an explosion at the front jounced them. Maya turned around and tackled the prisoner, slamming both of them onto asphalt.

"What the hell?" she pushed her infrared goggles over her forehead and yelled into the communication device that hung from her ear. The irritating pain in her arm attacked her at full force to reward her for her excellent dive, and has her gritting her teeth. She swore silently at her reluctance to use morphine like her physician had suggested.

"We've engaged their reinforcements. We met them on their way in," Sanderson from Alpha Team reported, as the sound of gunfire crackling in the background was audible.

"Roger that. I'm taking the prisoner to Extraction Point B. You guys fight your way out," Maya laid out her plan.

"Roger that. We will have the battalion provide fire support, now that the cat's out of the bag," Sanderson replied.

"Good luck," Maya could only afford to wish the men who were fighting to cover their escape.

* * *

Klaxons blared and explosions rocked Den Helder Naval Base barely minutes after the fire alarm was switched off to restore serenity to the base. Inside a bunker some thirty feet under the ground, a furious Brigadier Broker pounded the console top in front of him and bellowed at the young officer at his side: "I want the prisoner alive!"

"Sir," Lieutenant Danker replied with a gulp, at a loss as to what to do. He job was pencil-pushing, not field command, and he had already returned his knowledge of combat craft to his alma meter upon graduation.

"I've sent reinforcements to the prison block. A battalion of MPs and another mech battalion are on the way," Colonel Anatoli Krakowski, the mobile suit operations commander, reported confidently. Danker quietly heaved a sigh of relief.

"Good man," Broker praised, his fury somewhat diminished.

"The explosions are occurring at our western compound," Krakowski translated the blips on a tactical screen as he peered at it over the console's operator. "Probably small arty pieces firing from beyond the perimeter," he surmised.

"Counter battery fire to sectors W14 to 17 asap," Krakowski yelled to his tactical officers manning consoles to his right.

"We have no fire-ready units," an officer blurted in a shaky voice. "Not yet," he added hastily, hoping to avoid a tongue lashing by Broker.

"Probably still high," another officer sneered. "The 8th Platoon is scrambling. The 4th and 5th Platoons are being prepped," he reported the mobile suit activities under his watch.

"Who the hell's raiding my base?" Broker asked Krakowski, and received a shrug in reply. "Some anti-Logos bastards taking cheap shots," he opined.

"Illogical," Krakowski dismissed his superior. "The attack was well-planned and was executed by trained operatives," he explained.

"Coordinators?" Broker speculated.

"Who knows," Krakowski shrugged again.

* * *

"We're not going to make it at this rate," Amuro complained to his rescuer, who was crouching on one knee behind a truck overlooking a hangar that housed two 105 Daggers, both of which are currently being prepared for a sortie.

"Shut up," Maya said brusquely. She continued to monitor the technicians scurrying on the gantries that surrounded the 105 Daggers with her binoculars, and noting the suits' pilots leaning against a crate and puffing cigarettes.

"Plan properly before you do this sort of thing. How can you come here in that condition?" Amuro continued to reproof his rescuer, whose left arm was fastened to her chest by a black sling.

"Who the hell do you think I'm doing this for?" Maya turned around and scowled. Before Amuro could even open his mouth, she dismissed him with a wave and returned her gaze to the mobile suits not far way. "In your dreams," she added a verbal dismissal.

"You're a mobile suit driver. We jacking those things to hightail to our extraction point," Maya suggested.

"Can you pilot in that condition?" Amuro challenged.

"I can ask the same of you," Maya replied defensively. "Let's do this," she decided.

They crept up to the hangar, darting behind parked vehicles, sign posts and scrubs. Maya tossed a grenade at the pilots and sent them into the air. The explosion shocked the technicians, and then gunfire from Maya's pistol sent them scrambling for cover. Maya dropped her empty weapon and threw her remaining grenades at a crate of 52mm HE ammunition, and the consequent explosion slammed both of them onto the ground. They hauled themselves up and scaled the gantries for their respective mobile suits.

Upon embarking the cockpit of his new mobile suit, Amuro was suddenly swamped by nostalgia. The cockpit was old-school with three large screens, multiple MFDs arrayed on a main console that was flanked by two sticks, and foot pedals beneath the main console. Here he was, strapped inside a cockpit, being forced into a situation where he must learn how to pilot a foreign machine quickly to ensure his survival, not unlike his adolescent self clambering into the cockpit of the RX-78 during the height of the One Year War.

Amuro worked the foot pedals and pushed his suit through a series of wobbly steps. Then he began working the arms of his suit by yanking the sticks. To an observer watching from a distance, Amuro's movement seemed to resemble a drunkard flailing about for balance. The suit's controls were intuitive but the OS lacked finesse, Amuro finally concluded his appraisal of his suit.

"What the hell are you doing?" Maya's voice crackled over the radio. She was equipped with a 52mm gun on her right arm as she marched steadily in front of Amuro.

"Set com encryption: 876.321. IFF encryption: 77.343. Check," Maya instructed, preparing both their suits for combat.

"How do you set…," came Amuro's reply but it was cut abruptly as Maya shut non-friendly frequencies out of her communication line. _A rookie?_ Maya wondered, suddenly having cold feet about babysitting a novice pilot one-handed.

"Let's go," came Amuro's voice again on the radio as his suit raced in front of hers. Maya watched with slight disbelieve as Amuro's suit bent to the side to grab a 52mm gun lying on a trolley on the run.

* * *

"Watch out!" Maya warned over the intercom as two 105 Daggers opened fire on them. 52mm HE rounds sailed too close for comfort and shaved chunks off the roof of a hanger behind them. Maya put her machine in a crouch and returned fire.

"Don't stay still," Amuro yelled as he struggled to return accurate fire on the run, due to his suit's poor FCS. The suit's gun arm has two-axis stabilization but its response rate was poor, Amuro surmised, probably due to bad software that overcompensated the gun's recoil and the suit's bobbling motion. Auto-tracking was practically nonexistent, so he has to readjust his aim manually every time after he fired. His only consolation was that his enemies were probably using similar bad tools.

"I can't hit while moving," Maya argued. She vindicated her actions when her shot hit home. It struck one of the Daggers on the left shoulder and blew the arm below it off. But the victim was unfazed and continued to press forward.

Amuro was about 100 meters from Maya and about 800 meters from the hostile pair when Maya's suit shocked from an explosion. A HE round had struck it on the back, setting off volatile propellant, and the force of the explosion that followed launched pieces of the suit so far that they bounced off Amuro's suit. Amuro immediately turned his head to register two new bandits at six o'clock.

"I'm alright," Maya's voice was shaky over the intercom. Amuro heaved a sigh of relief. It would be bad to lose his guide just when he began to see light at the end of the tunnel. She got guts, he summed up his partner, and didn't deserve to die here.

Amuro's laser warning system blared as the newcomers' ranging lasers scored on his suit. He looked for smoke grenades to discharge and found none. "Is it here?" he yelled to himself as his fired, and his round rapidly covered space to hit the Dagger that was charging Maya dead center, killing the pilot instantly.

Maya had disembarked her stricken suit and was dashing to a nearby building for cover, but Amuro's masterful shot stopped her. A single shot of a low velocity round, an astonished Maya noted, fired off a moving Dagger at another moving Dagger. Maya has yet to recover from her daze when the survivor of the first group went down as well to another shot in the chest, which came off a move on Amuro's part that looked like something out of an eastern action movie. To hit a moving target with a low velocity round, you need to trace, and by a wide margin, Maya continued her analysis. He must be a Coordinator, Maya concluded.

Amuro had decided to aim for the pilot, to mitigate the risk that came with driving an unproven machine in a situation where he would most likely be outnumbered. He needed to conserve ammunition, and he found there was no risk in hitting such a vital spot of a battery-powered suit, which would have resulted in a nuclear detonation had it been a Zeon suit. He suddenly saw the enemy's shot striking his torso, and he responded to his premonition by twisting his torso just as the predicted round missed by inches, and at the same instant retaliated with a fatal shot.

Amuro ran around a building that was high enough to hide his suit completely with his pursuers in tow. His pursuers split up to catch him in a pincer behind the building but Amuro was already waiting to ambush them. He pushed backwards to induce a fall just as his pursuers emerged from the corners, dodging their crossfire which hit each other instead. Amuro fired to his left to finish off the final attacker who was still moving, and following that, he fired his suit's motors to lift himself back into an upright position. He returned to Maya's burning suit and extended a tow line to Maya who appeared from the side of a nearby building.


	6. Phase 5

**Picking Up The Pieces**

**CE 74 February**

**Onogoro Island, Orb Union**

_The people of the Atlantic Federation forever recognize the universal human rights of the people of PLANT as granted in the UN charter on universal human rights, and this recognition is extended to people collectively called Coordinators as defined in the said charter. The people of the Atlantic Federation forever renounce the use of violence on the people of PLANT, except to exercise self-defense, and as a token of goodwill, the armed forces of the Earth Alliance will disarm all nuclear weapons in its arsenal._

John Harold Murray's condescending speech at the reconciliatory conference left him drained. The flurry of questions that followed during the subsequent press conference further probed his battered pride without recourse. It was then that he was compelled by circumstances to affirm, albeit with great restraint, that the eminence of the Atlantic Federation was no more. His country now played second fiddle to two tiny states that had assumed leadership of the world, obtained through a series of events that augmented those states' military strength and public image in a way that can only be reasonably explained as God's will.

As a signatory of the peace treaty that brought the Second Bloody Valentine War to its official end, the Atlantic Federation had compromised greatly. On the military front, they had agreed to disarm all nuclear weapons in their armed forces, to maintain only one base on the moon with limitations on the tonnage of ships that it could host, and to withdraw all of its terrestrial forces from soil outside of its pre-war boundaries. On the economic front, they had agreed to massive reparations to the 'victors' in money and materials. And their dignity was greatly eroded by their public acknowledgment of their participation in genocide and inhumane genetic experiments.

Public hatred was mollified by a generous reconstruction plan that promised the creation of jobs, the distribution of free food and medicine for years, a concrete solution to energy woes, and a pacifist foreign policy drilled into the Constitution. Murray did not even dare to think how his government was going to fulfill its promises, with its treaty handicaps bogging it down in a quagmire that would take years to dig itself out of. But he made those promises anyway, at a time where unity was paramount to glue the fragile nation together.

Murray dropped his weary body on a fine leather couch in a luxurious suite high above the busy streets of metropolitan Onogoro Island. He poured Scotch and cubes of ice into his glass, and downed it all in big gulps, immediately sending his head into a terrific spin that seemed to cast away his woes.

"How did it go?" Basil Hart broke Murray's reverie.

"Could've been worse," Murray played down his hard day.

"A war dog like me can never play to the media like that," Hart commended his friend.

"No pain no gain, that's what they say," Murray reasoned. "What we need is their goodwill, as much as necessary. I put up a show and Orb agreed to provide humanitarian assistance."

Hart poured himself some of Murray's Scotch, and sat down opposite him with a full glass in hand. "Sympathy loses wars," Hart said after a sip of his drink.

"We take all we can get," admitted Murray. "You think there'll be trouble?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Trouble? Always, never stops. Peace is just an interlude to war," Hart said with a shrug.

"You think there'll be another war?" Murray asked, somewhat concerned.

"Local conflicts here and there, as our withdrawal leaves vacuums behind," Hart explained. "As for a full scale war, who knows? We won't be starting one, that's for sure" he added.

"People cannot settle their differences over a cup of tea. If anything, thousands of years of history taught us that," Hart lectured. "We may vow to never start a war, we may discard our technological means to wage a war, but we're animals that cannot be caged, and God himself cannot stop us from fighting, with our bare hands if we have to, when we're pushed."

"Then we must make sure peace lasts as long as possible," Murray interjected.

"We can try," Hart replied pessimistically.

"How are our space forces holding?" Murray changed the subject again.

"Not good. Nearly 70% destroyed and 20% out of commission. Our space forces is all but lost," Hart reported bleakly. "But as long as we retain a base on the moon, our strategic position is still salvageable. Ships can be built and men can be trained," Hart sounded optimistic this time.

"That's why you offered our nuclear disarmament? In exchange for keeping our forces up there?" Murray asked.

"It's like playing a game of chess. It's about the best positioning of the best pieces. Unbridled access to space is the positional aspect of this game," Hart explained.

"What's next for us?" Murray asked.

"Hush now," Hart put a finger to his lips. "The walls have ears," he whispered. "Things will only get better sir," he said aloud, as if to play to those offending ears.

* * *

"You're too soft," Athrun Zala commented. Cagalli Yula Attha stared at the stern face of a young man seated in front of her, whose soft green eyes belied the front he was putting up. "You shouldn't have agreed to provide humanitarian assistance. Orb's already stretched to its limits," Athrun berated the blonde girl.

"I can't just reject him. Orb must show the world that goodwill still exists," Cagalli defended herself.

"The Atlantic Federation was playing to your weakness. You're indecisive. Time and time again," Athrun accused her.

"I'm indecisive?" Cagalli could not believe her ears.

"You are. You can't just go around expecting me or Kira to rescue you everytime," Athrun continued his onslaught.

"And you aren't? Then make up your mind," Cagalli retorted.

"About what?" a surprised Athrun asked.

"This!" Cagalli exclaimed, jerking up her left hand, the ruby solitaire ring on her fourth finger suddenly magnified by her swift movement.

"Eh?" was all Athrun could manage, floored by Cagalli's low blow, with his stammering syndrome kicking in.

"Yeah, what?" Cagalli challenged. She couldn't directly express the doubt that has been languishing inside her, but as long as she has to keep guessing, her despair worsen with each passing moment. She needed some sort of closure, which she had hoped time would provide, but she kept catching her man in the company of another, and while she countered by immersing herself with work, her turmoil refused to slacken.

"I don't know," Athrun tried again. "…I'm not ready to discuss this yet," he admitted after a pause.

Cagalli felt a mixture of relief and devastation. She was relieved that things have a chance to turn out well, but was also devastated that her man could not reciprocate her strong feelings without reserve.

"You never called," she remarked, suddenly finding courage to begin baring her heart.

"What?" Athrun, engaged in his dense mode, was surprised again.

"When the battles ended, Kira called first," Cagalli explained.

"I did call," Athrun said. "Are you bothered by this?" he asked.

"No," Cagalli replied, immediately regretting her slip of tongue. Now Athrun would see fit to think of her as a callow person who took trivial things seriously. He did call her, and explained that it was late because he had to see to Shinn and Lunamaria's rescue.

"You're right," she began to make amends.

"Cagalli…" Athrun called gently, somewhat surprised by her roundabout behavior.

Cagalli stood up and bent down to peck Athrun lightly on the cheeks. "It's alright," she reassured him again, her voice unusually sweet. "It's late. Let's go to bed," she suggested. As if a cue, the bell of an old clock in the corner rang, twelve times if one kept count, and Athrun realized it was already late.

"You mean…," Athrun replied, his voice trailing, and a tinge of red blossomed on his cheeks. The situation has evolved into such a state that even the straight-as-an-arrow Athrun began to entertain 'certain' thoughts. She replied by wrapping both her hands around his left wrist, and pulled him up with a forceful yank.

"Good night. I'll see you in the morning," Cagalli steered his strayed thoughts back. She hastily walked away, leaving a wide-eyed Athrun staring at her back, and another confrontation unresolved.

Athrun sat himself down on a beige fabric sofa and recollected the meaningful encounter a week ago. At Shinn's family memorial, he finally put a painful relationship to rest by introducing Shinn to Kira. Once archenemies separated by ideological differences and traumatic events, all hostilities between the two evaporated when the two made peace that evening.

_No matter how many times it's blown away, we will replant the flowers once again, for sure_. Kira's words played in his mind. The same words touched Shinn's heart and reconciled him with his tragic past.

So many lives were lost in this war, a senseless war started by madmen who saw themselves as Gods and thus fit to toy with the precious lives of others. The hard-earned peace that has been achieved was still fragile and must be protected at all cost. The flowers can be replanted, but the effort that was required grew with each attempt, and the growth was steep. Athrun swore quietly that he would not be as indecisive as he was as the tides of war brew on Aprilius One, for the next time it come to pass, he would not hesitate to fight, for the sake of those he held dear.

His thoughts strayed and found Meyrin Hawke, the young ZAFT girl sacrificed so much at Carpentaria when she deserted ZAFT with him, and later even fought at his side onboard the Archangel, against her friends. Despite being somewhat dense at times, he was aware of Meyrin's fondness of him, and was undecided about how to resolve his delicate position between her and Cagalli, and hence his frank acknowledgement when cornered by Cagalli a while ago. But the moment, he told himself, he would stay at Orb.

* * *

**Guam, Atlantic Federation**

"So I'm a prisoner?" Amuro Ray asked in a tone that was laced with discontent. "So why the trouble of springing me from confinement?"

Maya Winters shrugged. Her job was to follow orders, not to question them, and despite her disapproval of placing the man seated in front of her under house arrest, she reluctantly saw to the deed, and even accepted the duty of guarding him. "Decision of the higher-ups. Not my say," Maya dismissed coyly.

Amuro was dissatisfied with how he was being handled. As far as he was aware of, he had not done any injustice to his current captors, and so it was vexing that he was being held against his will. Sure, he had made his share of enemies, born from his exploits in the helm of the immortal Gundam, but shouldn't these enemies be left behind in the world where the Federation and Zeon were still at odds with each other? Suddenly, Amuro is reminded of the one man who would follow him to this strange new world.

"Alright, the game is up," Amuro stared at Maya. "Where's Char?" he blurted.

"Who?"

"Char Aznable," Amuro elaborated. "Your paymaster. The one pulling the strings," he added cynically.

"Who is that?" a surprised Maya repeated her question.

"You really don't know who is Char Aznable?" Amuro probed further.

Maya shook her head. Her mind raced furiously to identify the man behind the name that was presented to her, but the name just didn't ring any bells. "A Coordinator?" she asked, trying to play the guessing game.

"Newtype," Amuro corrected her.

"And what's that?" Maya asked, her interest piqued. In his debrief, Amuro had conveniently reported that he was suffering from amnesia, and thus had no recollection of his origins. It was also fortunate for him that the higher-ups did not probe further as Amuro was cooperative with the technical details of the mobile suit with the fusion reactor. But now he seemed to be bringing up names and terms from his past, one that he claimed was wiped from his memory. _Was he lying_? Maya felt that things did not add up.

"Doesn't matter. What matters is what happens to me now?" Amuro asked, trying to resolve his ambiguous situation.

Maya shrugged again. "Don't know," she admitted. "Perhaps you will be roped in to aid the reverse engineering effort of that fusion reactor of yours," she suggested.

Amuro was silent for a while, staring out the window in front of him at the rolling sea that lapped the beach gently. "As a free man, or as a prisoner?" he asked.

Maya could only shrug. She was somewhat attracted to the man with curly hair who was dressed casually in T-shirt and jeans, and seated with his legs crossed in front of her, in a beachside villa in Guam. Two weeks after the daring raid in Den Helder Naval Base, Maya still could not reconcile with the fact that Amuro could pilot a mobile suit so skillfully while being a Natural, the latter ascertained through genetic testing. _No_, she chastised herself, _I cannot go down this path_.

Amuro stared at the young woman with her hair tied in a pony-tail in front of him. She wore a white short sundress with thin straps and lacy hem at the skirt and the bust, amply exhibiting her cleavage and thigh, all feminine features that strikingly contrasted the masculine first impression she made when she held out her hand to him in a black battle dress with an automatic rifle slung behind her.

"What?" Maya caught Amuro's stare and immediately retorted to hide the tinge of red that began to paint her cheeks.

"Nice dress," Amuro praised.

"Eh…?" Maya began to blush.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," Amuro admitted. "I had a rather nasty experience in that cell," Amuro recalled the brutish ways of his previous captor.

_Was that a compliment? Or just gratitude?_ Maya mind raced as her heart rate went up a notch. She stared at Amuro blankly, and as she struggled for an appropriate reply, she realized to her horror that her cheeks were blushing.

"Sure," Maya finally afforded meekly.

"Something wrong?" Amuro asked, sensing Maya's unease.

"No," Maya shot back. She suddenly stood up, pretended to glance at her wristwatch, and pulled out a save, "Oh, I am late for an appointment. I'll see you later". And with that, she briskly left the room.

* * *

**PLANT**

On one of the many hourglass-shaped colonies that housed the majority of PLANT's genetically-altered citizens, a young man gazed at the blackness of space that was punctuated by a multitude of twinkling stars, from a balcony high above the busy streets of a metropolis.

"Shinn…"

The young man with reddish eyes hair turned, and was rewarded with a warm embrace from a young girl with short hair.

"Something wrong?" the young girl asked as they parted. She stared expectantly at the young man, her misty eyes drawing the young man to meet them. He reciprocated.

"No…," Shinn Asuka let his voice trailed while he deliberated whether to share the matter that was troubling him. "Luna…," he faltered, looking away.

Lunamaria Hawke smiled at her partner reassuringly. She could sense that Shinn was restless, but she would not press him to talk about it. Instead, she hoped that her presence would soothe him, and that he would find solace in her company.

"I'd like to give it a try…," Shinn bared his thoughts, his voice somewhat gentle.

Lunamaria merely nodded.

"I like to replant the flowers…," Shinn articulated.

"At Orb?" Lunamaria asked incredulously, and almost immediately she regretted her hasty reaction.

"You don't want me to go there?" Shinn asked, sensing her sway in composure.

"No!" Lunamaria exclaimed. "No," she repeated in a more subdued voice. "I just…" She recalled the fateful encounter between them and the legendary pilot of Freedom, Kira Yamato. That man had moved Shinn's detached heart with his idealism and altruism, and more than that, these qualities guided him to the end of the war. The ideals of Orb, once held dear by Shinn, and then lost when his family was tragically extinguished in a spiral of violence that Shinn had blamed the Attha family for, seemed to rekindle again in his heart.

"The peace we enjoy now, we actually fought against it ," Shinn confessed. "The blood on my hands, these sullied hands, how do I clean them?" Shinn continued while staring at his hands.

"Shinn…," Luna began. "We cannot undo the past, we can only move forward," Luna consoled her partner.

"Can I be forgiven?" Shinn pleaded, tears welling in his eyes.

Lunamaria merely hugged him tightly, tears trickling down her cheeks as well. "Let's go back there," she whispered.


	7. Phase 6

**Rise, Red Comet!**

**CE 74 April**

**Mendel Colony**

The _Voltaire_ and the _Rousseau_ orbited the abandoned Mendel Colony at cruise speed. They were on a routine mission to apprehend ZAFT deserters who fled in the aftermath of the Battle of Messiah. Such characters were not few, and motivated by their frustration at how lightly the genocidal Atlantic Federation got off in the terms of expiation, especially since most of them lost their loved ones to the Requiem, they began to mount punitive raids on Federation orbital interests. These raid were isolated and unsynchronized, and organic defenders had no trouble warding them off. Until now.

A recent incident threatened to escalate the precarious situation created by these sporadic raids. Three days ago, the Federation resource station Atlantis 7 was attacked by unknown raiders, and its distressed calls were answered by a ZAFT patrol who happened to be in the vicinity, who then dispatched a squad of mobile suits to the stricken station, only to discover rogue ZAFT mobile suits massacring fleeing refugee ships. The attackers avoided confrontation by promptly leaving the scene, but their evil deeds were recorded and could no longer be ignored. Later, the visual evidence of the massacre leaked to the Federation, who then lodged a formal protest and requested ZAFT to quickly 'clean their house'. But PLANT's supreme council was divided on how ZAFT should respond, for some members were sympathetic to the deserters, some simply hated the Federation, and some opposed fighting their own kin, while those in favor welcomed harsh actions against those who jeopardized the hard-earned peace. Finally, the newly elected chairperson of the supreme council, Lacus Clyne, settled the brewing indecisiveness by ordering the arrest of all deserters.

Intelligence reported of the possibility that a group of deserters might have made Mendel their base of operations. Some of the machinery left behind in the gargantuan cylindrical facility could be restored to provide life support to a sizeable group of people. Such a facility could attract splinter groups to converge, from which their enlarged force could launch raids against the Federation, whose depleted space forces would most likely be unable to cope, with strategic consequences.

Yzak Joule led a squad of four GOUFs in a cautious approach toward Mendel. His custom white suit was flanked by three blue suits, all but one wearing a large shield on the left arm. The one without a shield held a long beam rifle on the left hand, with the weapon being supported by a flexible mount that stemmed from the hip.

_The GOUF is a close combat type but trust that idiot to mount that unwieldy weapon_, Yzak criticized Dearka Elsman silently. Dearka was the one piloting the odd GOUF, for he favored long range weaponry no matter the type of mobile suit he piloted.

"Hey, I just finished installing this M2000GX, but barely tested it," Dearka suddenly complained over the intercom.

"So?" Yzak retorted.

"I'm just letting you know, you know," Dearka replied, much to Yzak's chagrin, as if he expected Yzak to care, which Yzak didn't.

"Idiot. The GOUF is fine as it is, why the hell did you mod it?" Yzak could barely keep his rising temper in check.

"I'm not going to rely on that pee gun, you know. Size matters," Dearka replied in a pleasant voice, mocking the GOUF's native arm-mounted beam weapon.

"Shut up idiot," Yzak barked. "That big gun of yours is designed to be powered by a nuclear engine. Just hide somewhere after you run yourself out of energy," Yzak ridiculed.

"Hey hey, don't be jealous of my big gun," Dearka countered.

"Idiot. Who is jealous of that crap gun?" Yzak bellowed, eyebrows twitching.

Dearka immediately swore he would enroll his companion in an anger management class after this. _That guy seriously needs to chill_, he remarked to himself. But being a recipient of Yzak's incessant abuse for quite some time, he has grown accustomed to it and would even feel off if the insults didn't fly.

"Yeah yeah, chill man," Dearka repeated loudly. "You think there's anything here?" he quickly changed the subject.

"What? How the hell do I know?" Yzak replied, his tone somewhat subdued but still coarse.

Dearka shrugged to himself. "Just never like fighting our own," he voiced out his sentiment.

"Idiot. Thinking like that will get you killed," Yzak's tone was surprisingly soft. Dearka has known him for a long time, and there was no doubt on his part that Yzak was capable of empathy, despite appearances.

"Yeah yeah, I'm not getting killed anytime soon, relax man," assured Dearka.

The chatter devolved into silence that pervaded as the four ZAFT mobile suits flew in formation through a sea of debris that surrounded a massive cylindrical structure directly ahead. But the silence was broken by a sudden explosion that engulfed a grunt GOUF that had strayed back to investigate a peculiar movement among a cluster of debris. As the remains of the ill-fated suit scattered, the remaining suits hastily dispersed and began looking for the unknown perpetrator of the evil deed.

"No shots registered on the situational sensors," Dearka reported. "Who the hell did that?" he quizzed.

"Might be a mine," Yzak suggested. "Which means we're on to something," he said warily.

"Commander…," the pilot of the their remaining escort shrieked before his GOUF exploded, the event visible on Yzak's right viewport as a flash of light.

"Shit! What's going on?" Yzak yelled. He drove his GOUF through a series of vigorous maneuvers that looked like a bright streak of blue darting around in zigzags, as seen through Dearka's eyes that captured only the trails of hot ionized gas from Yzak's thrusters on his viewport.

Dearka poured his concentration at his viewports, scanning the blackness of space that was littered with metallic debris, many of which were larger than a mobile suit, for the unknown enemy that had extracted fatalities from his elite squad with such efficiency that even the nature of the attacks was obscured. He withdrew his GOUF, clear of the field of debris that might conceal the enemies.

"Yzak, pull back," Dearka suggested prudence. "They must be hiding among the junk."

Yzak ignored him as his white GOUF was still maneuvering around the site of the second GOUF's demise. Dearka's eyes, its attentiveness to details many times surpassing a normal human due to his genetic heritage, suddenly caught what he surmised to be an unnatural movement on his right viewport, something that even his suit's FCS discounted. His eyes caught a small piece of junk, in a fleeting moment, accelerating to make a turn and then stopping completely a moment later. This offending piece of junk looked like a mushroom-shaped device, with a short thin tail and a circular wedge shaped head, and the tail was now pointing at Yzak's suit.

"Look out!" Dearka shouted as a high-resolution zoom on the device revealed it to be a weapon that Dearka knew only too well, the distant but harrowing experience at Jachin Due flaring up in his mind. A DRAGOON!

The small mobile weapon expelled a bolt of green light that lanced towards Yzak's GOUF but missed hitting him in the same absolute way that had saw to the destruction of two similar units a while ago. Yzak's flight path, which jerked from Dearka's sudden warning, caused his suit to miraculously avoid the deadly beam of particles that was zeroing in on him. Losing its element of surprise, the accursed DRAGOON darted into a cluster of junk and away from view.

Dearka promptly destroyed the DRAGOON's hiding place by vaporizing it with a beam of red and blue. He fired again at several spots in the immediate vicinity of his first target, while retreating backwards at maximum acceleration, with Yzak following hotly.

"You see my big gun comes in handy," Dearka boasted, as if vindicating his decision to equip such a weapon that was ridiculed a while ago.

"Stop joking," Yzak chided. "We can't engage DRAGOONs in such a cluttered place," he assessed.

"What should we do?" Dearka asked.

"We're dealing with an ace here. Only a person with high spatial awareness can control those things. Not many in ZAFT are capable of this," Yzak continued his assessment.

"Yeah, but what should we do?" Dearka pressed on, as their GOUFs continued their high velocity retreat.

Yzak merely grunted in response. "Fire support from the _Voltaire_ and the _Rousseau_, to plough the way clear. Then we move in for the kill," Yzak laid out his plan, his voice laced with menace, for he was angered by the fact that two former redcoats were forced into a tactical retreat by an enemy who has yet to show himself.

"That's not much of a plan," Dearka sounded doubtful. He recalled the wrath of Rau Le Creuset's DRAGOONs at Jachin Due, those deadly mobile weapons unleashing a storm of beams upon the battlefield. While Rau's DRAGOONs relied on shock and awe, specifically, high output of beams to overwhelm and devastate opponents, what he encountered just now was the exact opposite. A single DRAGOON, relying on stealth and the element of surprise and attacks with clinical precision.

"It's not that simple fighting those little devils," Dearka reinforced his lack of faith in Yzak's plan.

"Get a grip, we are ZAFT," Yzak declared. Without waiting for a reply, he raced his GOUF back into tiger's den, this time bent on exacting vengeance.

Dearka stared at his companion's suit, which was diminishing into a dot on his viewport, and contemplated the situation at hand, but quickly discarded his lack of conviction with a slap to his helmet with his gloved palm, before flooring the throttles to push his GOUF after his fast disappearing friend.

They approached Mendel again, this time at high speed. "Fire," Yzak ordered, and the large warships that were trailing behind opened up their beam batteries at a large piece of machinery that was drifting to their right, turning it into molten metal in an instant.

Yzak pressed his GOUF forward, twisting and turning around metallic obstacles, using them as cover to shield his suit, and designated targets for destruction by relaying their coordinates back to the supporting warships, which responded with rapid artillery barrages on those targets.

Now, Yzak and Dearka skimmed over the punctured surface of Mendel's hull, their vigilant eyes keeping a lookout for hostile DRAGOON pods, but they were rewarded with silence. They reached the end of Mendel's cylindrical structure and turned to make for its docks. Upon arrival, they raced through the dock's opened doors into the belly of the beast.

After the docks, which were empty, they flew into the desolate interior of the colony. Once a vibrant city thrived here, but the populace were forced to abandon their homes due to a biological threat, and later the ghost city became the temporary home of the legendary ships that went on to fight at Jachin Due. Building blocks remained on the surface below, but vegetation and objects that were not fixed in place had been blown out of the colony through various openings when the colony depressurized. Such an environment was certainly not conducive to support life, and it was difficult to imagine that there was still life onboard.

"The airlocks weren't sealed. I can't believe there are people here," Dearka commented.

"They could be faking it, to snide us," Yzak opined.

Their GOUFs continued to cover the airspace of Mendel unopposed, and while Dearka found the lack of action comforting, Yzak was perturbed.

"Those bastards attacked us out of nowhere, and expect us to believe this place is deserted?" Yzak roared. "Who the hell they take us for?"

Dearka stayed silent, preferring to focus on the task of locating hints of the enemy's presence. And his efforts were not in vain. On the surface, hidden between two buildings, he caught a glimpse of red.

A mobile suit! Dearka's mind spewed the most important analysis he has ever made, and immediately ordered his limbs to react for the sake of survival. They did, their rapid manipulation of control sticks translated into a life-saving flight maneuver that avoided a green beam of death that has sliced through the space that was occupied by his GOUF only a moment ago. In an instant, he was granted life over death. But to live, he must do more, so he unleashed retaliatory lances of red and blue particles at the spot where he saw red, while he eased his suit down behind a building for cover. Overhead, he saw Yzak's arm-mounted Draupnir vent their four-barreled fury at the same buildings that had hid the red suit, pulverizing those multi-storey structures.

"It's a red mobile suit," Dearka reported, his mind racing to get a grip of the situation, sweat forming on his brow. "Type unknown," he mirrored the report on his tactical display.

"I'm tired of these sneak attacks," Yzak growled as he settled his GOUF down in a crouch a few blocks away.

"You think we got him?" Dearka asked.

"This bastard wouldn't die so easily," Yzak answered skeptically. Their opponent was a DRAGOON user after all.

"Use that cannon of yours to level this place. Draw him out. I'll finish him off up close," Yzak detailed his new battle plan.

"Sounds good," Dearka agreed.

Dearka's GOUF jumped clear of its cover, and rained searing lances that disintegrated concrete facades and metal decks, turning a large city block in front of it into molten rubble. Yzak's white suit was already orbiting the ruins, ready to pounce on any mobile suit that might leap away to avoid Dearka's beam barrage.

As Dearka's GOUF landed behind another building for cover, his tactical screen beeped a familiar warning of low battery level. '_Damn_!', Dearka curse silently. He had already tune down the output of the power-hungry M2000GX, which was designed to be powered by a nuclear engine, so that his suit's battery can energize a meaningful number of shots without too much drain. But now, his tactical screen indicated that his battery level has been depleted by about 80%, and surely too close for comfort, given the nature of the enemy he was engaging. He regretted not giving the weapon a trial run before actually deploying it in a real battle. He quickly detached the unwieldy weapon from his suit's hip, and reassessed the tactical situation. Yzak's battery level probably has more reserve, so it would be prudent to have their roles switched, with him taking the lead and Yzak providing fire support.

"Yzak…," Dearka called.

"Got him!" Yzak interrupted, and Dearka caught his partner diving towards a building about a mile away from the ruins. "He moved that far at street level?" he wondered aloud.

Yzak turned the building that was hiding his prey into molten rubble with his suit's rapid-firing beam weapon, and charged towards a red mobile suit that was apparently struggling to escape the cascade of smoldering concrete chunks. Fortune was smiling on Yzak as his prey ended up on the ground and with the building's debris pinning it down.

Yzak afforded his prey a quick glance as his suit's visual recorders was already operating, and a detailed analysis of the latter could be performed later by techies. A red suit with Zaku-esque bulk and mono-lens optics was immediately discernable, but the ubiquitous spiked shoulder hoods of the Zaku variants were missing, thus exposing the suit's shoulder joints. The suit seemed unarmed, without any weapon attachments visible, and with both of its arms flailing wildly in a futile attempt to free itself from its deathbed.

_This feels almost anticlimactic_, Yzak noted as he dealt the finishing blow. A burst of greenish bolts speared the red suit that had been antagonizing him, and the ill-fated suit melted away from the hits. _Melted away_? Yzak wondered, but his bafflement was pierced by tardy realization as his suit shocked from an explosion.

Dearka watched in horror as the DRAGOON that had been terrorizing his squad struck Yzak's GOUF in the back, igniting volatile propellants, which in turn sent the suit spinning downwards. Instinctively, Dearka's Draupnir opened up on the DRAGOON, but the bolts sailed through vacuum as the latter has disappeared from view once again.

Dearka heaved sighs of relief as his partner's white GOUF fired peripheral thrusters to regain stability and to decelerate its descent, and finally slammed its ballistic shield onto the ground in the nick of time to prevent a fatal crash. If Yzak was responding with such acute movements, then he must be alright, Dearka assured himself. But the white GOUF's joints buckled from the impact, and the lower arms that were supporting the bulk of the suit against the shield blew off, consequently somersaulting the suit over the shield and onto the ground, where it laid in silence in a belly-down rest.

"Yzak!" Dearka screamed into his mike as he orbited Yzak's suit, keeping vigil against the lurking DRAGOON.

"…You're noisy," Yzak's croaked, but it was music to Dearka's ears.

"You alright?" Dearka asked, relief filling his heart.

"Grrgh," Yzak grunted. "Just get me out of here."

* * *

A trio of Zaku Warriors floated in formation not far from Mendel, in a corridor of junk that provided natural shielding against the sensors of the capital ships that were besieging the colony. The lead suit was painted red, and its flanking suits wore military grey paintjobs. The red suit also wore a modified backpack that has a rack-like mounting attached to the port side, with a small DRAGOON-like device latched to the rack. All three suits have large boosters attached to their legs, accessories usually used by mobile suits for long-distance travels.

"The funnel could use more improvements," the pilot of the red suit remarked.

"But commander, three kills out of four wasn't bad," one of the flanking pilots argued.

"The funnel's battery lasted four shots. It seems that's the limit for such a size," the commander analyzed.

"But you made it work, despite its deficiencies. Using moveable decoys to bait the enemy, and remote sensors to provide targeting, and to actually control the DRAGOON all the way from here," the second flanking pilot praised.

"The commander calls it a funnel. Pay attention!" the first flanking pilot corrected the misuse of terms.

"Good job, my friends," the commander interjected. "I destroyed the funnel, but obtained excellent data," he appraised. "Time to go."

With that, he ignited his boosters and launched his suit in the direction of the moon, and his companions followed suit. The nearby ZAFT capital ships detected their movements, but chose not intercept as their commander was still trapped inside Mendel.


End file.
